


One Taste Could Send a Man to Heaven

by Beewritesstuff (Mimispace)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dadster, F/M, Fluff, Gaster has the hots for you like no lie, Paps is a chess champion, Pining voidfriend Gaster, Romance, Shithead scientist Snas, Void-ghost Gaster, Wonderful scientist Reader, ferociously-monogamous Gaster, porn with a lot of plot actually, request fic, them eyes don't stray lemme tell ya
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:52:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6896527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimispace/pseuds/Beewritesstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The void is cold. Unfeeling. A source and an end in one.</p><p>Soon, Gaster becomes the same...until he sees you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The ties that bind

**Author's Note:**

> A request fic for a dear friend ;3 Here's your warning for gratuitous use of bad science, aka If It Doesn't Make Sense Blame It On The Magic.

This place, this…Void, (or dimension, or whatever you want to call it) where Gaster resides, is timeless. Every event that can happen, has happened, or is currently happening is tangled together here in a hopeless snarl of threads and timelines, and for a very long time, Gaster swims aimlessly among them. Sometimes one touches him, and he is pulled bodily from the Void of time into that moment of existence, unable to interact with his surroundings in any way. He is voiceless and invisible; an intangible ghost that can only observe whatever is going on around him.

This goes on for what feels like centuries- or maybe it’s forever, Gaster can’t really tell- but slowly, he adjusts. Learns to let his disembodied-self flow with the currents around him, to glide around timelines rather than become ensnared in them, and to gradually come to recognize common times and places.

There is nothing else here to do, truly, so Gaster spends a very long time just learning. Answering questions that he’d never had proof of before. He goes back to watch the universe being made, then hops forward and stands in awe of the dinosaurs. He looks on, smiling, as the asteroid with the first seeds of magical potential crashes into the earth, killing off the great reptiles but starting something so much more amazing in the tiny, warm blooded lifeforms that had lingered beneath their feet, or in the scaled and graceful creatures of the ocean.

He observes history, watching as many landmarks of human civilization that he can; things that he’d missed, being trapped Underground with the rest of Monsterkind. Some information sticks with him, but so much of it just…falls away, and after a while, Gaster stops trying to remember everything. The mind isn’t meant to know _so much,_ he rationalizes.

He finds what he considers to be his ‘home’ timeline one day, and avoids it after confirming his worst fears: in every timeline that a version of him had ever existed in, he’d been wiped from conscious history. His name had vanished from print, his personhood from the minds of even his closest friends. Only his eldest son, Sans remembers him, and the young man struggles with that burden of knowledge every day. Yet life goes on: the Monsters are freed, the Underground is opened, and the two dominant species of Earth slowly work out an uneasy truce.

All goes as it has in countless other timelines, and Gaster lets it fall from his conscious thought.

So imagine his surprise one day (century, millennia) when, as he watches, his home timeline glows, shifts, and spirals off into a brand new pattern. One he’s never, ever seen before in connection to the standard, ‘Gaster dies, Frisk falls, Monsters are freed’ series of events that seem to happen together so often.

It’s a singular oddity, something that has truly never happened before in all of infinity, and it spreads like a benign germ, touching some other timelines and making their patterns change in turn, now that the potential is there.

Never has he seen a ‘new’ event as it was born, and Gaster excitedly dives headfirst into his home timeline, right at the moment of the change.

-

The world swims into view around him, and Gaster’s first thought is that this must be a research center of some kind. The neat lobby, deceivingly organized-looking closets, and bland décor that can easily be moved out of the way for a spur-of-the-moment meeting on the floor all looks too familiar to be anything else.

It takes longer for him to be able to actually pick up sound in various timelines; it’s as if he’s a crappy old radio, searching for a signal that he can listen to. Finally-

“…be happy to have you on board. To be honest, I was hoping to find someone like you. My others are good, but they’re…”

“tight asses?”

Gaster turns, his Soul constricting at the voice. There stands his son Sans, looking exhausted and gray, framed by sunlight coming through the glass of the building’s front. A woman is talking to him with her back to Gaster, and her laugh rings out free and loud at the shorter Skeleton’s question.

“Absolutely tight asses. God, you’re refreshing.”

Gaster squints at the grin that comes over Sans’ face, waiting…

“i dunno…ive been told my sense of humor is _bone dry_ before.”

A snort leaves her even as Gaster rolls his eyes, and she reaches out to bap Sans gently on the head with a stack of papers. “That’s awful.” Then there’s a pregnant pause, and Gaster feels his (nonexistent) stomach drop out. ‘ _Oh no...’_

“It was so bad, it might just send me to my _grave._ ”

Sans looks up at her and his grin broadens into a real smile, his tired eyes full of mischief. “Sounds like we’ll have a _bone rattling_ good time then.”

The woman giggles even as Gaster groans, turning….and his voice catches as gets his first good look at you.

“The Vortex, as I told you before, is a frictional-magnetic generator. We hope to use a preexisting design of my own and combine it with some of the aspects of the Underground’s Core. Magic will hopefully allow us to avoid some of the roadblocks that held back the project before, mainly the unmanageable levels of friction heat produced when…”

The sunlight makes it hard to make out your features in any detail, but he can at least see right off the bat that you’re tall, with a mess of unruly hair on your head. As you walk closer, talking to Sans about the company and what he’d be doing, Gaster hums in his throat and looks closer.

You’re a beautiful thing, older, with striking features and a sharp, crackling intelligence in your eyes. Gaster finds himself smiling as you explain your facility to Sans, your speech punctuated with broad gestures that show how hopeful you are for the future of your designs. You disappear through a door with Sans following, and Gaster decides to come back to this point and follow you through later as well, turning to exit back into the void for now.

He lets himself scatter into nothingness again with a sigh, then turns to the timeline, wondering. What had possibly changed, that a conversation about what _must_ be a job between you and Sans has so drastically altered so many events across so many possibilities? Chewing his lip pensively, Gaster gathers himself and drips down into the timeline about a week prior to what he’d just seen…

…and is ejected bodily back out of it, back into the void.

Frowning, he tries another point…and the same happens. He tries a few more both past and future, then starts attempting the other timelines that are showing similar changes.

Nothing.

Finally, exhausted and stretched thin by the effort, Gaster has to admit that, somehow, these timelines are locked to him for all but the present moment currently being lived by _someone_ in them. He can only assume it’s Sans; he’d been the first person Gaster had seen upon entering, after all. Achey and grumbling, Gaster puts the mystery from his mind and wanders into a far distant timeline. It’s a favorite place of his to rest, and he settles himself into the untamed jungle he’d discovered long ago, sighing. The huge waterfall nearby lulls him to sleep with its noise, and Gaster closes his eyes to the world.

It’s too terrifying to sleep in the void.

\-----

Over the next few weeks, Gaster comes to realize that it’s not Sans whose life he’s locked to, but _yours._

You are his beacon for this timeline- an unavoidable gravity that he cannot escape.

At first he was irritated- _how dare you keep him from exploring freely, from seeing all that there is to see of everything, ever!_ –and then, in a slow, trickling horror of realization, he’d realized the madness that had creeped up on him, trapped in the timelessness of the void as he was. That he’d become so accustomed to limitless existence that he was _angry_ if it were denied him…it was too close to the cruel, cold quest for knowledge that had warped him so awfully in the Underground. He’d considered his sons to be his worst mistake once, but they’d been what had saved him in the end; caring for them had forced him to find his his compassion and love again. Now just your _existence_ had saved Gaster from a frighteningly similar trap. Of course he’d want to learn more about you.

He also freely admits that he is _bone-achingly_ lonely.

After Gaster finally decided that, for now, he’d restrict his wanderings to a few choice locations and his ‘home’ timeline, it left him very little to do but watch various peoples go about their daily lives. He feels like an observer in the world’s most boring and extensive non-interference study.

Yet slowly, he learns things that he’d never noticed before. Mostly about himself.

The small moments between strangers make him smile, and a tiny, infant Bunny being cooed over by grannies in the park touches him. He enjoys watching women put on makeup; not for an attraction to their body, but rather for the tiny, graceful motions and fine detail. Likewise, he finds himself deeply interested in other small handicrafts- sewing, crocheting, flower arranging. Such things appeal to the aesthetic perfectionist in him; a flip side to the cold, laser-focused researcher he’d once been. Once, he’d sneered at such things…yet now he’d kill to have even a piece of string in the Void, anything to do with his hands. It’s like the world’s most unproductive retirement.

Most of all, he likes watching Sans and you. The two of you together are oil and water in the best of ways, bickering like brother and sister even though you’re technically older than Sans is by a few years. Gaster laughs til he cries as Sans very carefully tugs a single strand of your hair with his magic, over and over until you’re nearly insane with trying to figure out _what_ is touching you. When you finally catch him, you grab his phone and lock yourself in your office, loudly reading his texts through the door to the entire snickering team as Sans frantically tries to break in.

Gaster has claimed a corner of the lab as ‘his’; a good vantage point to watch the goings ons, and has just faded into existence there at the same moment you come through the doors. You yawn hugely, a squeak at the end making Gaster smile, and pad into your office…

…and a huge, deafening fart echoes through the lab.

Gaster can only giggle through his hands in horror when, in the silence after, a cracked whisper of “ _Sans”_ filters out through your open door.

When Sans arrives three hours later, you give him the sweetest smile when he wanders up to you, then lunge forward and drop a marble right into his eye socket.

Gaster shudders even as he roars with laughter while Sans spins and sputters, trying frantically to shake it out. Having something _inside_ your skull is a disgusting feeling at best, though he certainly has no sympathy for his prankster of a son. Your laughter too, warms something in his Soul, and his chuckles fade to a small, fond smile as he watches you cavort around Sans.

More and more, Gaster finds himself watching you. Listening to you as you talk with the other researchers, or hum along to the radio as you stay late to do paperwork. He wishes he could touch your hair, or your skin- you look so soft. He wants to see your eyes crackling with intelligence, wants you to give him that uncensored smile you sometimes give to the men he occasionally sees you leave with. He wants to sit and talk with you long into the night the way Sans does sometimes, to make you laugh, to hold you gently when you come in looking exhausted…

But he can’t.

\-----

Some of his favorite times are when you have presentations to give. 

For the week or so leading up, you hole up and practice out loud in your office, and he can sit there and pretend you’re talking to him. Can interject little comments when you pause to take a breath, or just relax and let your voice wash over him.

Eternally he is reminded that you are, in fact, brilliant. A while ago, you’d been droning on about the environmental safety of your project, when you’d stumbled over a magical equation (one that HE'D written, though you’d never know it) as you read it out loud.

"...when zero is substituted for friction in the presence of...wait that's not...That's not right. How could that be right, if magical signatures vary dependent on the originating source...?"

As he watched in wonder and growing delight, you’d grabbed paper and scribbled for a few minutes, consulted something on your computer, then leapt from your chair and stumbled into the main area, screeching for Sans.

Less than a day later, the two of you had successfully discovered a new sub-law of magical reaction. A week later, the Vortex was self-contained, with an augmented cooling system successfully transmuting the excess frictional heat into a continuous loop of shaped magical shielding.

Gaster had been too busy being proud of you to even be miffed that it was HIS formula you’d corrected.

Now three months later, your team finally felt confident enough in the design to start tentatively seeking financial backers, rather than depend on share-holders.

Which meant eighteen pages of an investment-presentation that he's heard you practice so many times, _he_ practically has it memorized.

He’s standing behind you, reading over your shoulder as you read your final sentence-

“-and the Vortex team personally thanks you for your interest in making our country, our world, a better future for…”

-and is caught completely by surprise when you stop suddenly…and sniff. You sniff again, then let out a shakey sigh, and Gaster’s Soul clenches to realize you’re crying softly.

“I can’t do this,” you whisper, crumpling the paper slightly, and Gaster darts around to stare at your face. You have you thumbnail between your teeth, worrying at it like you do when you’re distressed. Thoughtlessly he reaches up to knock your hand away…but of course his hand passes right through yours.

“Oh god, what if I fuck up…what if I fuck this up for _everyone_?” you mutter, swaying slightly where you stand. Gaster shakes his head, reaching helplessly for you.

**~~“You will not, I know you will not…you are so brilliant, any with eyes could see that this is a good idea.”~~ **

His voice is distorted and staticky to his own ears; you don’t react at all. Gaster huffs with stress, looking away respectfully when you blow your nose and wipe at your makeup. Then-

“No…no, anyone with eyes can see this is a good idea. I _know_ the Vortex works. We…I just have to do better.”

-Gaster blinks, staring at you.

Had you heard him? Somehow, had you heard him? It was probably just coincidence that you’d echoed him just now, but…

**“ ~~Carry a tablet with you the whole time. No one would question a researcher carrying a tablet, and you can keep your notes on it. To look at if you get lost.~~**

You sigh, fumble out your speech and start again from the beginning, and Gaster’s happiness fades. For a moment, he’d been so _sure_ that you’d heard him. That he’d…gotten through, somehow.

The brief spike of excitement leaves him gloomy and morose until the next day, when he pops in just before you walk into the room leading a pack of suits…

...clutching a brand new tablet with a death grip.

Something very close to hope blooms in his Soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) and join the discussion on handsome skeleton men <3


	2. Close enough to touch you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmmmmmmm :)

Gaster has always been a bit of a morning person. Not because he enjoys dragging his creaky old bones out of bed, no.

But because of the calm, the stillness, of early rising. Before the war and the Underground, he’d always gotten up at sunrise to feed the chickens and chase the silly goats out into the yard. Then the fighting started, and early mornings had been a necessity. Humans didn’t see well in the dark, got sick if they went too long without sleep. Late nights and early mornings were the best times for ambushes- there were never enough Monsters for full-out assaults.

Looking back, Gaster doesn’t even think it counted as a war. Humans reproduced _so_ much faster, were capable of so much more harm. Then the Mages united, worked together rather than living as recluse…

Such was the end of Monsters.

But through it all, through those first, starving years and the millennia of imprisonment that followed, when he was one of the last few who remembered what sunlight felt like, Gaster had still gotten up when the first hints of muddled sunlight crept down through crevasses and cracks.

It was probably the last recognizable thing about him, after centuries of stress and numbness made him the cold, hateful creature he’d left the world as.

Gerson had even found him, near the end. Near the day that, during one of his fits of self-loathing, he’d wrenched himself into the molten Core with a hoarse, angry snarl at the world around him.

Gerson had found him not three days before, standing in New Home’s Hall of Light, letting the meager sunlight shining from thousands of yards above wash over his bones. He’d looked terrible; sleeplessness and lack of appetite draining his magic to deadly lows, letting the cracks on his face split and yawn until he looked ready to fall apart at any moment.

He’d _felt_ ready to fall apart at any moment. The ‘birth’ of his second son, if you wanted to call him that, had forced Gaster to face some very ugly parts of himself.  Whispers of just _what_ he’d been doing lately had started filtering up through to the ears of old friends; things that terrified and disgusted in equal measure.

Monster experimentation.

Cloning.

Child soldiers.

Limitless money and limitless power can make a monster of a man, and when the King had told him that they needed options through _any means necessary…._

(And what world have you brought them into, Wing Dings? What life are they living, in a cold, empty cell?!)

Calibri, beautiful, sweet, Calibri…she’d tried to stop him. Had called him on his sins when none other, not even the King, would meet his eye.

She’d stolen them away; the two boys. When Gaster wouldn’t listen, wouldn't transition them fully to a life better suited to two children rather than two inanimate objects, she’d caught them up and ran. Ran, ran, all the way to Snowdin. Had begged the Riverperson not to let him follow; they wouldn’t.

He’d thought he was angry then- a years work, wasted!

He hadn’t known anger until a month later, when the word got out.

Calibri Fonteri, head of the Core project, had fallen to her death in one of the ravines around Snowdin whilst on 'holiday'.

For the first time in _years_ , Gaster had begged. Begged the Riverperson-

(Please take me to them, let me see my…sons. They are alone, they are afraid, they-)

( **No.** )

It would be months before Gaster learned they were safe; were in the care of a fire elemental who’d opened up shop there years and years ago. Faintly, Gaster thought he and Calibri might have even eaten there once.

When the world was brighter, and there was still HoPe in his Soul.

“Hear you finished up Ms. Fonteri’s Core.”

Gaster had ignored the old turtle, too caught up in his own grief and hatred.

“How much of it was already done, would you say? She never seemed like the kind to leave things unfinished.”

 _Oh,_ but Gerson was cruel.

~~“It was complete.’’~~

He didn’t even have enough magic to properly speak; it came out garbled, mangled.

“So you just had to…flip a switch? Turn it on?”

Gaster hadn’t answered, and so Gerson, after a sigh, left.

Three days later, when he’d stumbled, screaming and ranting like a madman into the Core’s central control, Gerson’s words filtered through his mind again.

_“She never seemed like the kind to leave things unfinished.”_

“ ~~No…no, but she left ME.”~~

~~“She left me and I DESERVED IT!”~~

Gone was the chance to say _I love you_ , gone was the chance to hold her to him…Calibri Fonteri, brilliant, star-bright Calibri, who’d built the Core to benefit Monster-kind as he’d locked himself away and played God…

…was dead.

Maybe, he’d thought, he should be too.

-

Such are the thoughts that Gaster thinks, as the sunset shines through the high-windows of the research center. It’s a gloomy day all around; work had reached a standstill until the investors can decide one way or the other, and despite Sans’ best efforts to be encouraging, you’re convinced that they’ll drop the contract even after your presentation yesterday.

So he’s as surprised as you are when, not fifteen minutes after Sans wanders out into the hall, he comes back through with the entire year’s class of Queen Toriel’s academy. It’s hard to be sad when there’s fifteen bright-eyed baby Monsters clambering over everything; one simply doesn’t have the energy for depression while trying to keep a young Golem from taking a bite directly out of a metal safety railing.

Gaster wonders if Sans had noticed the beginnings of desperation in your eyes, the tight press of your lips. It had been a couple days since he’d mentioned the Queen wanting to bring the little ones over as an evening fieldtrip of sorts, and it had been obvious at the time that you weren’t really listening. But when the Queen comes over to talk quietly, Gaster can see that you’d needed this.

He’d overheard you and Sans talking a week ago, the late hour and a smuggled bottle of booze loosening the bright, inexhaustible mask you wore every day to reveal something old and tired underneath, and had stayed to listen…

-

“They bought us out, the _fuckers!_ Bought the shares right out from under us, until they had the majority…”

You let your head fall back against the wall; the bottle in your hand thumped to the ground as a slow tear made its way down your face.

“Back when all of this began, we promised Asgore…in return for the use of Monster tech, the _first_ claim to the power generated by the Vortex would go to Monsters. Free, clean energy, to offset the cost of living that’s so fucking high because humans are _trash…”_

You took another swig while Sans looked on helplessly, jaw working as he tried to think of something to say.

“And…and the worst thing is, they fucking waited to do this! Waited until the elementary schools were handing out goddamn _coloring pages_ of the Vortex project, until the King started distributing all those fucking pamphlets…until all the Monsters were so goddamn hopeful that at least this _one thing_ would go right for them, once the public assistance money is used up…”

You let out a shakey sigh, curling up to rest your forehead on your knees. “Now, EbElectric bought us out…the second we put the shares out, they started buying them, but privately…little subsidiary companies that we never would have guessed were connected with them. They’re threatening to shut down the project on the sly if we don’t sell the facility to them…”

Gaster had his head in his hands; he knew what you were saying, even as it took Sans a moment to catch up. The biggest oil company in the area had been slowly buying shares of the Vortex project, carefully hiding their doings until they had the majority vote. You’d suspected it for some time; they’d done it to other, clean-energy groups in the area.

Now they were threatening to shut down the project completely; using the threat of betraying your promise to the Monsters as a way to control what you did.

“oh…oh man, oh shit. okay. okay, we….we’ll figure something out. you n’ me, if ya want me…we’ve got those _electric_ personalities, you know what i’m sayin?”

Sans was trying, trying _so_ hard, but…

“What will I say if they don’t hold to the contract with the King? How many families will go hungry because they won’t be able to afford electricity AND food?”

Whatever Sans was going to say, it was cut off when, savagely, you’d thrown the bottle at the concrete wall with a deafening smash, glass pieces skittering across the floor. When one landed near you, you’d picked it up to roll it between your fingers, your eyes glassy.

“Only way they can’t do it…is if I don’t own it anymore. If ownership passes from me to the board of directors upon execution of my will…then all the shares are paid back, and the money leftover is reinvested into salaries and operating expenses…”

Sans looked up slowly, his eyes widening as he realized what you were saying.

Gaster couldn’t breathe.

“no. no, there’s got to be another-“

Gaster almost _heard_ it, almost felt it himself when the sharp piece of glass finally popped through the flesh of your thumb, blood welling up around it.

“I wonder what would happen.”

You weren’t looking at Sans- your eyes, fever bright, were fixed on the steadily glowing center of the Vortex. Even on standby, it put out an eerie blue light; it illuminated your expression in terrible detail, an expression Gaster recognized too well. Too fucking well.

It was the look of manic desperation, on a face too exhausted for words.

And yet before Gaster could move, could do anything…Sans was there. Kneeling on the floor in front of you, gripping you by the shoulders and shaking you hard.

“don’t you _dare_ say that, don’t you fucking…do you know how important you are? how many people care about you? how many people would miss you if you were…”

Sans shuddered, and it seemed to snap you out of whatever fascination the Vortex had held for you just then.

“W-what?”

“ **don’t you ever talk shit like that again**. _ever._ we’ll figure something out, all of us…but i can’t…”

He sat back and looked away, knuckling at his eyes for a second. “i cant lose you too. it’ll fucking kill me, i was already so close when i started here.”

“Sans, what?” _Of course_ , Gaster thought to himself. _Of course it would take another person’s suffering to make you forget yours._ You leaned forward and caught his hand, then swore when your bloody thumb smeared a streak across his bones. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I…”

“here.”

Then to Gaster’s honest astonishment, Sans took your hand for a moment, and sunshine-yellow magic washed over your skin. The ugly tear on your thumb vanished.

“my uh…my mom taught me that. healing, i mean.”

Finally, Gaster cries.

“Sans, I never knew you-“

-she’s dead.”

The words hung in the air between the two of you, and Gaster’s Soul felt like it would tear in two.

“I’m so sorry….” You reached for Sans, then pulled back slightly. “Sans…what you said…”

“i was in a really bad place when i started here, ya’know? like really bad. once pap moved out, got a place of his own…i was gonna go back under the mountain and try to find the place where my mom died. just go out there, and…and not come back.”

Gaster shuddered, helplessly reached for his son- god, so many missed opportunities to hold him, all those years ago. And now, when he really wanted to…

“but paps saw this place while he was out for a walk. saw the sign on the door that you guys were looking for an extra set of hands, so…”

“Sans you are _so_ much more than an extra set of hands.” Then at last, you’d wrapped Sans in the embrace Gaster couldn’t.

The two of you didn’t talk about the night again; you both showed up to work the next day; exhausted, red-eyed and shakey, but you’d spent the entire day pouring over the legal paperwork for the vortex.

Three days later, you passed control of the project to the Board of Directors, after deciding that your health was such that, upon much consideration, you weren’t  medically able to be both a hands-on presence AND a financial representative at the same time.

It was all horseshit of the finest degree, but a friend of Sans’ had owed him a favor, and they’d just so happened to be a physician of both Monsters AND humans. You’d gotten the fake medical diagnosis of some stress disorder or another from them, and had paid back the shares within twenty-four hours.

EbElectric was furious.

Gaster was _painfully_ proud.

-

Whilst the other researchers proudly show off their own personal projects to fifteen eager sets of eyes, the Queen and you became fast friends; whispering with your heads together as Sans relaxes in a chair near you. When you stand and offer her a little tour herself, she nods delightedly, and Sans grumbles at the loss of his footrest.

The two of you make it about half-way around the main ‘control’ room, before a tiny Wolf puppy plants herself at your feet.

“You’re tall!”

Gaster smiles when you giggle, bending down slightly to look her in the eye. “I _am_ tall!”

“And your skirt is pretty! Do you like skirts? I do!”

"I do like skirts! There's just so much more of me to dress, it’s easier not to try and cover it all," you say as you gesture at your long legs, and Gaster can only roll his eyes in concurrence even as he appreciates your appearance. Finding clothing tall enough to fit him had always been a challenge, and he was a Monster for Starlights sake! He can't imagine how it must be for such a tall human woman.

"And-and-and you're so beautiful!" The little one, her eyes still bright, puppy blue, runs forward to hug your leg. "And smart, and nice...you'd be a good mommy!"

His Soul warms when you smile and reach down to scoop her up onto one hip, balancing her easily as the Wolf mother walks over, laughing. The puppy peers up into your eyes as you run one finger gently over her ears. "Well I can't have babies of my own...so maybe I'll just have to keep you instead! Because you're even more beautiful than me!"

Gaster cocks an eyeridge at that, wondering. Do you say that because you're a single woman? Or because physically you're unable to? He knows females of all species sometimes are unable to have children, so perhaps you are the same...

"That's because my Mommy's the prettiest person in the whole world!" the puppy announces as she squirms out of your grip and races back to jump into her mother's arms. The Wolf laughs and catches her easily, then looks up at you again. "Thank you so much for doing this. The children had a wonderful time!”

You blush, rather prettily in Gasters opinion, and wave off the compliment. "It’s important to teach little ones about things like this, so they care when they're older. I'm happy to help."

The Wolf walks over and hugs you one armed, while the puppy lunges in and gives you a tiny lick on the cheek ("Pucha!" "She even _tastes_ sweet mommy, she's the nicest lady ever!"), then the Queen hugs you before leading the rest of the classroom out the front door, leaving you to sag into a chair in the lobby and let your head fall back with a thunk.

 _'Do you get as nervous as I did?_ ' Gaster wants to ask as he watches you take a deep breath _. 'Do you worry that you're teaching them right, that you're doing the right thing? Because you are. You did so beautifully, Stars above I wish I could tell you...'_

 

You shift uneasily in the chair, glancing around; Sans had gone out with the Queen, leaving you alone (effectively, anyway) in the control room. With a sigh of relief, you reach up absently and flick open the first two buttons of your shirt. Gaster has seen you in far less; sometimes you’re down to a sports bra and shorts, when the Vortex is running hot and you’re elbow deep in it, but…

There’s just something _tantalizing_ about that hint of skin, that swell of flesh that’s _just_ visible below the fabric of your shirt. Then before Gaster can look away, you draw one leg up, kick off your heel, and slide the fabric of your skirt up your thigh to begin peeling the glossy black hose off your leg.

His eyes are glued to the fabric as it slinks down your thigh, over your knee, and down until it slips off your toes. He always had a thing for lovely, delicate bits of lace and fluff on a woman; the tiny glimpse up your skirt that he can’t help but see shows a matching little black scrap of fabric, with a plush little puff of hair above it.

Then, torturously, you repeat the process on your other leg, and Gaster shivers; he’s a disgusting lecher for doing this, for _watching_ you -hell, he’d even looked up your skirt! But…

He wants you. He’d realized that the past few days; he wants you as a man wants a woman, wants to get to know you, to feel you. He’s drawn to your intelligence like a moth to a flame; is burned over and over on your beauty.

It’s the first time he’s felt like this since Calibri and the women who’d come before her…the first time he’d observed anyone with anything more than cool, clinical interest.

Unbidden, his hand reaches out to touch your hair; Stars, how he wants to pull it free of the pins that hold it in place. Wants to slide them out, one by one…muss you more and more with each freed lock, then kiss you hard and long until your lips match your hair- messy and beautiful, both because of him.

He thinks about what the puppy had said, how she though you tasted _sweet_...oh yes, he’s almost positive you do, though in a far different way than the puppy meant. There’s just something about you- about watching you as you led the Queen around the room, effortlessly showing her the sum of your life’s work…

Oh yes, Gaster wants you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) and join the discussion on sad backstories


	3. If it sends me to hell, it's worth it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter count keeps going up, because I keep finding more and more tidbits of smut I had squirreled away here and there for his fic....I hope you guys don't mind _too much_ extra sex...
> 
> ;)

Gaster can’t quite remember what being human is like. The muscle memory is there, distantly; he winces in sympathy if he sees a human stub their toe or cut themselves, even though such things wouldn’t hurt at all to him. But he can’t actively remember what being flesh AND bone is like. Such is a the blessing of skeleton monsters; the memories of the previous life fade, allowing for a clean, innocent Soul to form.

But if he _were_ still human, and _did_ still have a flesh and blood cock, it would be in such a constant state of hardness that he’d probably give himself calluses.

Honestly he can’t help it; there’s just something so…so _tantalizing_ about you. You’re exactly the type of woman he likes, and as the old saying goes; you always want most what you can have the least.

Starlight and comet-trails, is he learning _that_ first hand.

The investors have pulled through, to your utmost relief; there’s no need to depend on stock-shares if enough private investors take interest. You’re sitting there after a long day, tearing apart pre-printed packs of thank you notes and signing them, whilst Gaster relaxes against your desk with a happy sigh. Lately, he’d taken to acting less like a void-ghost and more like his ‘real’ self; he’d discovered that, with enough focus, he could rest against physical objects rather than pass through them. It’s a small victory, but one he cherishes; nothing feels better than to prop his hip against a desk like he used to, or grip a doorframe and hang there a moment. Even more satisfying was the ability to arrange his atoms into something resembling his previous self, clothes and all- he’d spent ages getting the texture of his sweater right. But it was worth it, to smooth his palms down his front and feel the tiny ridges of pseudo-woven cloth.

Currently, he’s just enjoying your company. You’re basking in your success of the day, and it makes Gaster smile to see you so pleased with yourself. He likes to think that you’d find him handsome too, once you overcame the initial wariness of a different species. He seems to be your type, to an extent; tall, well dressed.

As Monsters become more and more integrated with society, it’s not unheard of to see a Monster and human together. He lets himself dream that you’d enjoy being with him, since Star’s above know there’s no chance of it actually happening.

When you run your tongue over a paper fold to tear it cleanly, it sends an agreeable shiver through Gaster. 'Stop that,' he tells himself. 'Your old bones are far past such things.'

But it doesn’t stop him from watching as you do it again and again, slowly quartering the remaining printouts into note paper. In the back of his mind, Gaster can't help but wonder what that soft little tongue would feel like on _him_ instead. If he could lay a fingertip on it and have it wrap around, or perhaps just lay back and shiver as it drug, hot and wet, up his sternum. How your teeth would shine between your pillowy lips, how your eyes would catch the light and reflect it back at him.

Stars and the dark between, how he wishes he could _touch_ you.

When you finally finish with your stack of scrap paper, he lets out a breathless sigh of relief, sagging back against the ever-present voidspace behind him.

Then, innocently, you use your teeth to scratch an itch on your finger, and Gaster jerks himself from your dimension, trembling as he stumbles back to the Void.

Free of an existence that requires form, he collapses back into a scattered nothingness and shivers as his Soul pounds.

Ages it might have been since last he was anything more than a ghost, but his body remembers all the same.

He is at peace with this second life, truly. Being a skeleton has its advantages, and he’d accomplished much, up until the end. When his death had come, cold and unescapable...he’d been at peace. The Void did not hurt, was no torture. He misses his sons to this day, misses their bickering and their silly antics, wishes he could give back the childhood they’d only gotten a scant few months of, but…

He’d been content.

Until now.

Now... _oh_ he wants. He wants so much. He wants to chase your smirk with his tongue, to nibble at your giggles and swallow your sighs. He wants your graceful fingers to circle his wrist instead of a screwdriver, to draw tiny patterns on those secret, inside spaces until he quakes apart. He wants your laughter; his son is funny, but _really_ , where do you think he got it? He wants your muzzy sweetness at early morning shifts, your gentle voice late at night...

Gaster gives up for a little while.

\-----

A few days later finds him lounging around the main room, watching the show put on before him with great humor.

A handsome young buck prances around you, preening and fluffing himself like a lovesick pigeon. He's a twenty-something year old loaner from an affiliated company, here for the weekend after he'd reported back to his supervisors yesterday. Now, with his duties done and his boss assuaged, he's enacting a war on your personhood that has Gaster stifling a snort into his fist to watch.

"Of course, after _my_ idea was successful over the others, they just had to accept me. Survival of the fittest, after all..." He pushes his shoulders back and adopts what he thinks is a confident sneer, and the expression on your face, hidden as you pretend to be _very_ interested in a section of paneling, sends Gaster snickering back to the Void to look elsewhere for a while.

What a wet-earred pup, to go sniffing around a woman without the slightest awareness of what she really wants.

Later, he steps back through, wondering what Papyrus is up to…and freezes.

The lad has you mounted up against the door of your office, his face buried in your neck as he ruts his clothed hips up into you.

Gaster flinches, forgetting for a moment that he can't be seen, and is almost torn in two by his twin desires to get the _fuck_ out of there...but also to stay and watch, if only for the open-mouthed pleasure on your face as you dig your nails into the boy's back.

God, if Gaster had thought the tiny noises you made when you yawned or stretched were torture before, they were _nothing_ compared to the flame in his marrow now when you gasp, "Please!"

He hates himself, _loathes_ himself for staying during this...but can't bear to tear his eyes away as the boy works clumsy fingers down the front of your trousers.

Apparently you can't bear it either, because Gaster spots the moment you lose whatever peak you’d been mounting before. Disappointment and frustration streak across your face, before you bury it in the lads neck and pant, trying to grind against his palm and work yourself to completion.

It's for naught. You take pity on him a minute in, and gently take hold of his wrist to stop him before taking his own length in hand.

Gaster swallows a snort as the green-sprout pup finishes in mere moments, his completion streaking over your fingers. To his credit, he fetches tissues from your desk and cleans your hand gently, murmuring something low and intimate, but you shake your head in the end. His face falls even as you shoo him out your office door, then close it and lean back against it again.

Gaster, above all else, is a father, though probably a better one now (invisible, intangible), than he’d ever been in life. So when you gently start to beat your head back against the door, so like Papyrus had when he was naught but a baby bones, Gaster is across the room with his palm cradling your skull before he even realizes what he's doing.

His first thought is how _warm_ you are compared to the constant chill of the void...

And then that thought screeches to a halt, because _he can feel you_. Its a phantom weight, an almost touch; your head still passes through his palm to rest against the door, but _still._

A hunger worse than starvation, worse than thirst or any other want he can imagine rears up inside him; constant deprivation of sensation and touch has left him desperate and reeling for contact, however slight this might be.

He brings his other hand up shakily, resting it on the crook your shoulder, and _yes_ _gods yes_ , it phases down a centimeters...and stays.

It's barely feel-able; just the slightest pressure on his voidal bones- but it’s enough to make him pant with sensation.

Then he feels (he feels!) you shift positions slightly, and looks down to come face to face with what _must_  be a punishment for his sins in life. The Void hadn't forgiven him, oh no. It had just waited for the right moment to torture him, because there he stands in his incorporeal state as you flick open the button of your trousers and waste no time working one, two fingers into yourself.

He had played god, and now he's being punished. Because he _knows_ he should pull away, should leave you to your pleasures alone (as you assume you are), and scream himself hoarse in the emotionless Void...

But then your little head, dwarfed by his palm, arches back against the door as you bite your lip to stifle a mew, and Gaster willingly signs his Soul off to hell.

He belongs there, after this. But he can't tear his eyes from your face as you cover your mouth with one hand, bucking your hips into the fingers of your other.

Gaster knows this dance; your beckoning fingers seeking out that secret place that makes your knees shake, before switching to fast circles on that tiny point of pleasure right at the apex of your sex. Back and forth, straining pleasure to fizzing tingles, and he thoughtlessly entwines his fingers with the hand over your mouth and presses it to the door.

You go willingly, and he drops his skull to rest against the door right above you with his clenched  teeth almost touching your hair, sliding his other hand down to tease over the peaks of your breasts where they strain against your bra.

Dirty, disgusting, old lecher...the mantra pounds in his bones, a self-flagellation that doesn't even begin to make up for his actions here, but it doesn’t stop him from gently pinching a nipple between clever fingers, rolling it and plucking it as he squeezes your other hand in encouragement.

Then you squeeze back.

He jerks his head back to state down into whip-crack intelligent eyes that are focused directly on his face, before you suddenly arch your back with a stifled scream, your teeth grit and your eyes squeezed shut as you come so hard your hips buck on your own fingers. The sound is a balm to his Soul; the sweetest thing he can ever remember hearing in his life, besides his sons' infant wails.

The shock is enough to temper his own desire, though he's careful to support you as best he can (hardly at all) as you sink to the floor, panting. When he lets go of your hand, you close your eyes and grab for it again blindly. Wildly confused, he lets you grab his fingers again.

"You have big hands." Your voice is soft in the quiet office, your eyes still closed. "Are you a...Monster?"

Gaster looks around frantically, trying to figure out how he could possibly answer you, but clever, beautiful woman that you are, you figure it out first.

"Can't you speak?" 

Gaster does the only thing he can- he squeezes your hand gently, praying that whatever alignment of the stars that is allowing this will last for just a bit longer.

You smile slightly, but there's well-hidden fear in the tightness of your lips. "One squeeze for yes then? Okay...are you a Monster?"

Gaster could smash his head in a door with frustration, but then...

Quickly, he cradles your hand flat in his other (with you holding most of the weight up), and draws a question mark in your palm.

"You don't know what monsters are? Or...you don't _know_ if you're a Monster?"

<2ND< he spells carefully in your palm, watching as your mouth the letters along.

"The second one, okay... _were_ you a Monster?"

<YES<

"I'm so sorry..." He frowns at your apology, and spells out the question mark again.

"You were a Monster, right? So...you're dead?"

Gaster, going very slowly, spells out <NOT EXACTLY<.

There's still fear on your face -and that cuts Gaster like a blade, he'd lop off his own hand before he hurt you- but there's curiosity there now too.

"Not exactly...okay, is there somewhere I can...learn more?"

Gods, you’re perfect. Perfect and beautiful, and so fucking smart. Gaster, after a moment’s hesitation, carefully spells <ASK SANS<.

The expression on your face makes Gaster grin; combined incredulity and growing triumph.

"Sans? Sans the skeleton Sans? Oh that shit, I _knew_ he was holding out on me. Okay...okay, so what...or who should I mention? What will make him think I'm not crazy? Which I might be, all things considered, maybe you're just one hell of a hallucina-"

He cuts you off with a tickle on your palm, smiling though he knows you can't see it. <GASTER< <I AM GASTER<

"G...Gaster? Like rhymes with 'faster'?" Then instantly you realize the innuendo of such a rhyme in a situation like this, and blush, looking away sharply.

Gaster is so nervous he could just curl up and die, even as he spells out a shakey <YES<. Here's the moment you'll shriek and run, realizing what you did with a Monster you can't see or hear, can barely touch...and Gaster will _chain_ himself to the Void then, rather than follow you pitifully after you've fled him...

"Gaster? Gaster...Hi. It's nice to meet you."

He should know better than to underestimate you by now.

Your face is soft, intimate, and it does funny things to Gasters Soul. A tiny smile flits across your lips even with your eyes still closed, and he trails a gentle fingertip over your lashes in question, his Soul still pounding in fear that you'll run.

"It's...scary, talking to someone who isn't there, touching them...it's easier if I close my eyes."

<I SEE<

He watches your face, waiting with the tiniest smirk...

"I se- oh god, noooooo that's awful! Not you too!"

You're laughing now, and Gasters ribs clench at how beautiful you are. Hair mussed, pants undone, face flushed...stars and cold-light, he wishes he could hold you.

"My name is ______...but you might know that already? How long have you um...been around?"

Gaster squirms, and he sees your lips tighten as woman's intuition tells you exactly why he's squirming.

"Gaster the Ghost, you just felt me up while I had the best orgasm of my life, now cough up. How long have you been here?"

<SINCE SANS BEGAN<

You purse your lips to the side, thinking. Doubtless trying to figure out how to get the most information with the shortest answer.

"Back to Sans again...does he know you're around?"

<NO<

"Does he know _of_ you?"

<YEEEEEESSSSS....<

He trails the answer off slowly, not liking this line of thought.  But you're a quick witted creature, and you back him into a corner neatly.

"how?"

Oh god. Oh god Oh god Oh god okay. You squeeze his hand as if forbidding him to run, and it's with nerves like custard that he spells,

<MY SON<

"WHAT?!"

Gaster raises one shoulder as if expecting a blow, trying to step back, but apparently whatever this thing is between you is made stronger by emotions, because you YANK him down and he sprawls across you for a moment, then scrabbles away.

"Don't you _dare_ run, you- you...you, how _old_ are you? Sans has never even MENTIONED a father! Unless...oh god, ARE you a man? I'm so sorry if you aren't, I didn't mean..."

You go from a whisper shriek to a concerned murmur so fast that Gaster feels dizzy, though he grabs your hand and quickly signs

<YES< <SORRY<

"So yes you're a man. And you've been around since Sans started...christ, that's almost four months. Oh shit, I bet you've seen me do so many embarrassing things, oh my god..."

You snatch your hand back to hide your face in both, and Gaster can practically taste the swell of affection that rises up in him at that, even though he's busy being properly berated. When you peek through your fingers at what seems to be an empty room, he gently lifts your chin with one finger, before taking your hand and spelling,

<YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL< < _BEAUTIFUL_ <

You're blushing by the end of it, but smiling as well, and after a moment’s hesitation Gaster throws concern to the wind and settles with his back to the door, then gently tugs you over until you're seated  between his legs with your back against his chest.

You sigh, running your fingers through empty air. "This is so bizarre, I know you're here...I can feel it, like my muscles are holding me in this position, only I can relax and stay this way. Also, you're very tall. Was it…was it you before? The past couple weeks, I’d thought there was someone there, it almost felt like…like they were just a few feet away, like they were watching me…I kept wondering if someone was around."

Your voice drops to a blushing whisper by the end, and Gaster nods even as he gently wraps an arm around you to pull you back against his pelvis for a moment in answer, reveling in the closeness and almost-touch.

"Okay good…and what just happened was, um…that was, that was…really good. _Amazingly_ good. In the future though, could you um...let me know you're around? So I'm not doing something awful while you're watching? And if I need some alone time...will you leave? I can only trust you, I can't know for sure."

Gaster squeezes your hand immediately. He swears on his Soul to obey your wishes; he doesn't have the self-control to keep himself away by his own accord, but he won't dishonor a woman like you after you've laid it out so plainly.

“Have you watched me do…other embarrassing things?”

<NO< <I LEAVE<

"I can’t possibly tell one way or the other but...something tells me you’re telling the truth. Thank you. I wish I could...could touch you too. Know what you look like."

<TALL< <SKELETON<

"Skeleton? More like Sans, or like Paps?"

<2ND<

Oh it’s tedious to talk like this. There has to be something else he can figure out, but for right this moment, he has a beautiful woman in his lap, and he'll be fucked if he's moving.

"More like Papyrus huh...god, what'd you make him from? Crack? Did you know he broke down my door at 4am last week to go running with him?"

Gaster laughs and shakes his head against your hair, and you sigh.

"He's a sweetheart."

The two of you sit like that, just resting against each other for a few minutes, and Gaster closes his eyes to the sound of your breathing.

He realizes, almost tiredly, that he loves you.

Then with a sigh, you sit up and start fluffing out your hair. When you try to get to your feet, your thighs are too unsteady for a moment, and Gaster lurches up to help you.

"I would...I mean, I’d like it if you could be around again, come tomorrow. I have to head home now though, I'm exhausted."

The smile you shoot behind you is enough to start a warm thrum through Gaster again, even as you button your pants and stretch. He brushes a hand down your spine, then clasps your shoulder. When you turn, he concentrates so hard it hurts, then touches a fingertip to your lips. You smile and kiss it gently; oh but mortal life is so soft, so fascinating and fluid compared to him! He doesn't even realize he's pressed his finger slightly between your lips, until you step closer and suck it gently with a mischievous glint to your eyes.

"Can you feel that?" His hands are trembling like an inexperienced boys when he spells <YES<.

"Then maybe, Mr. Gaster...we could get to know each other better later?" It's an obvious flirt, and it's sends a spike of desire so hot up his spine that his toes curl.

In a rush, he grabs your hand and spells <DOCTOR< <DR WINGDINGS GASTER<

"Sans, Papyrus and Doctor Wing-" you cut yourself off, and Gaster could groan at what comes next; he knows damn well what you're going to say...

"Then you're...a _font family..."_

Gaster stands there patiently as you giggle yourself into hysterics, wishing so badly that he could speak in some way, could explain the strange, muddled genetic memory of humans and skeletons that had given him those names long before they were used for type-writer fonts. He thinks you’d like to hear it; you're a hound for knowledge of any kind.

Finally, when you're reduced to snickering gasps, he reaches out and drums his fingers on your head to exasperate you. It's strange- your hair doesn't even move. It's truly like he's touching a second body within you, as if your human flesh isn't quite as able to respond to him as your...

your

Oh.

He grabs your hand, writes out a sloppy <GOODBYE< that you probably can't even understand, and throws himself back into the void like he's fleeing a plague.

He knows that feeling. Knows it like he knows the back of his hand, because it's IN the back of his hand.

You have magic.

You have _skeleton_ magic. 

When you die, you have the potential to become a...a...

...

Gaster screams himself hoarse at the cruelty of it all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) and join the discussion on potential consentacles, which I just realized were a thing.
> 
> Good. 
> 
> This world needs more consent. 
> 
> And maybe tentacles too, who am I to judge?


	4. Like cornmeal and fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pure white is most definitely allowed to be a persons favorite color.....

Gaster is heartbroken to realize he can't touch you at all the next day.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Then a week goes by, with you occasionally calling out to him...and of course he can't answer.

It wrenches something inside him to see your face fall when he doesn't answer you, though you still occasionally comment out loud to him.

Like he, you wonder if there was something special about yesterday that allowed him to break through that impossible barrier for a brief time. Still, your belief fades, until finally, you corner Sans in the breakroom after hours.

"Sans...can I ask you something?"

Sans is the immaculate prankster 99% of the time, Gaster knows this better than anyone. But the fear in your eyes (god that bites as deep as a knife), the barely-concealed panic in your voice, is enough to make Sans be serious.

"sure buddy. what's up?"

Apparently, it was far easier to be comfortable with a disembodied figure in the afterglow of an orgasm, than to talk about them a week later in stark daylight, because you truly look...haunted.

"Who is....Gaster? Doctor WingDings Gaster?"

Only Gaster, and maybe Papyrus, know Sans well enough to see the shock flash across his face, instantly replaced by a cultivated nonchalance.

 ** _'Help her!'_** he shouts uselessly, **_'She is terrified and it is my fault, please Stars above, help her...'_**

"wing...dings? mmmmmmmmm nope, never heard of em'."

**_‘Sans for FUCKS sake!’_ **

The short skeleton turns to leave, but you lunge up and grab his wrist, your finger brushing in-between the two bones, and Sans jumps away like he's been scalded.

"hey watch it buddy, those kinds of places are pretty uh...heh, sensitive? didn't know you wanted to jump my bones so bad..."

You yank your hand back, and Gaster smothers a spike of jealousy. _Stop that, you're disgusting. It was an accident, how would she know how to touch a skeleton?_

"Sorry," you whisper, your eyes wide as your cradle your hand against your chest. "Sorry, I didn't know..."

Sans waves it off, looking distracted. He wavers between leaving and staying, and Gaster nudges you (although his hand goes right through again, whatever power had taken pity on him before is truly gone). **_'Ask now. Before he makes up his mind.'_ **

"He was..is, tall. Really tall, like seven feet tall at least, and he's a skeleton like you." You're not looking at Sans, or else you'd see the wide eyed look of panic on his face. "He said he was your dad...well, he said that you were his son, and that he was a man, so if that's not how skeleton family systems work then I'm sorry..."

"...it is."

"And he...he had-has really big hands, like this big at least-" you sketch around your fingers on the table "-and I think his palms had...holes in them? They felt rough, like...like an injury, like they weren't quite supposed to be that way but something happened?"

Now it was Gasters turn to cradle his hands protectively to his chest, blushing slightly. When had you had time to notice that?

"And...and Sans, look, I'm terrified. Not of him, he seems like a really, really nice person. But I'm afraid I'm hallucinating or something, and I don't want to get locked up somewh-"

"he died."

You do look up then, though Sans is staring out the window, his face carefully blank.

“he was a shitty fucking dad, that originally cloned me and paps to be prototypes of expendable, throwaway monsters. about six months into it, my mom...she was a friend of his, they were really close, grabbed me and papyrus and ran for snowdin. that’s where we lived then. a month later, she got caught in an avalanche or something, and died. dad killed himself a few months later.”

You’re speechless, staring at Sans aghast. Gaster can barely stand to listen.

“and see the shitty thing, the _shittiest_ fucking thing about it, is that he killed himself in the core. just pitched himself into it, the past-seers told us that. but the core...it was made to breakdown _anything_ \- matter, energy...break it down to it’s barest pieces, and transmute it into magic. but the day he did it, they were testing something new. something mom hadn’t really worked on yet. the core, theoretically, had the power to _destroy_ matter. destroy it entirely, through something called void magic. so he didn’t just die…”

“He stopped existing.” You finish it for him, since it becomes clear after a good half a minute that Sans can’t. “Sans I’m so sorry.”

Sans shrugs, scratching absently at his knuckle. “best part of it all...when he did kill himself, i was back home in something mom had been building. a void hopper, kind of like a...a time machine, sort of. it was supposedly shielded against any backlash messing with the void would generate. so when dad threw himself in, everyone else forgot him. the world forgot him...except me.”

Sans’ face is calm, almost peaceful...but his knuckle is chipping slowly away, flakes of dust falling from it like fine snow.

“i kept working on it. when i got older, alphys and i...we had a little team together, working with it. hoped we could use it to escape the barrier; how can a barrier stop something that _doesn’t exist_ , you know? but after a while we just...gave up. other shit started happening, it uh...it messed me up pretty bad. and that’s the end of it.”

There’s nothing like a son laying out the sins of the father to truly drive the nail in. Like father like son though; Gaster has been picking at the holes in his palms since the moment Sans opened his mouth.

“So Sans...if he doesn’t exist then…”

“i honestly don’t know. you’re the first person i’ve _ever_ met that knew of him. ever.”

He goes quiet for a while, and Gaster can see you closing off, growing scared…

“but he wasn’t always so bad.”

Gaster jerks at that, pulled out of his own misery by Sans’ tone of voice.

“i read a lot of his stuff, and mom told me about him. he was a lot like you, in the beginning. at least that’s how i think it. he was really old; he fought in the war. was one of the skeletons that was born before the war, actually. i think it was the work to break the barrier that finally fucked him up. asgore pushed _so_ hard for him to figure a way out, that dad just kind of...cracked under it. but he wasn’t so bad. near the end, when paps was born...dad got a lot better. papyrus lit a fire under his ass; he starting acting a lot more like a father. still didn’t break us out of the lab though- it took mom to do that. i think he was afraid he’d lose us.”

Sans looks up at you then, his face dark. “you uh...heh, you reminded me a lot of him a few weeks back. when you were all fucked up from those dicks at ebelectric.”

You nod slightly, and Sans stands up. “we can start looking around i guess. since there’s two of us now. you majored in particle physics, right?”

Despite himself, Gaster is impressed.

“Yeah, that’s my doctorate. My BS is mechanical engineering.”

“alright. we’ll uh...keep an eye out. see what we figure out.”

Sans walks out, pulling up his hood as he does, and Gaster is torn between following him and watching you. There’s the funniest look on your face, though you shake it off and move to leave yourself.

\-----

Gaster is in a haze the whole next week. To hear his son just...lay it out so plainly.

He wonders when, exactly, he’d started thinking of Sans and Papyrus as his sons. Not just subjects, but family. The Void is timeless, rough and ever-changing; it tumbled him like a river stone, leaving his edges smoothed even as it gave him centuries to think about his actions.

He loves Sans, loves Papyrus. They are spots of brilliance in his nonexistent life; points of hope that he is so fiercely proud of. The endless resets that Sans had lived, the kindness of Papyrus that lasted even until the moment of his death…

If only he could tell them.

It’s a quiet day in your center, with the other workers focused on their own tasks as you and Sans fiddle with yet another piece of tech...but Gaster can’t be assed to investigate. Sans had cut him deeply, even though he’d deserved it.

Finally, even Sans leaves. You stay for a while, playing with a small, worn book, before packing up your belongings and leaving.

For the first time, Gaster follows you home. He can’t bare to be alone.

You chew your nail the whole way, driving with one hand and staring distractedly out the window.

He's surprised when he sees your house; he’d expected something more modern, for some reason. But you live in a little cottage-like rancher, backed by acres of forest that apparently belong to you.

You unlock the door, tossing down your coat and purse with a sigh, then immediately go into the kitchen,and pour yourself a shot of liquor. Gaster looks around, smiling at the decorating style that just seems so _you_ , as you shoot a second, then wander back into the living room.

"I know you're here...I'm almost _positive_  you're here."

Gaster jumps in surprise, but you're staring at the ground as you toe off your shoes, leaning on the couch for balance.

"I...was working on that a little today. It’s so weird, I'm not feeling _for_ you...it's more like I'm feeling for the _absence_ of you. Empty air where there should be _something_."

Then you turn, one hand pressed over your chest (over your Soul, he dimly realizes), and point directly at him.

"There. You're right there."

Then your face crumples, and Gaster could weep himself as you turn away, hiding your tears.

"What's wrong with me? Why can I...what _is_ this? Am I...am I just crazy? Hallucinating all of this, in a home somewhere?"

You pace a little, then stop again. "Well...even if I am crazy, it doesn't hurt to talk I guess. Sans said you were a physicist primarily, so you'll appreciate this."

You take a deep breath, clutching at your chest again. "We’ve tried everything, the past week. Heat scans, emp levels, radiation, radio...hell, we even tried scattered electron scans, those aren't even LEGAL yet. Magical detection spells and sigils of various types, chemical air scans...but if what Sans said is true, then...how do you possibly scan for something, or someone, that's literally the opposite of existing?"

Gaster had vaguely wondered what the two of you had been doing, but he’d been too caught up in his own sadness to really pay attention.

Conversely, you’d been working every moment.

"I...god, this is insane. IF you're real, if I'm not just a raving lunatic...I'd really like to get to know you. I just...there's something about you."

 _Soulmates_ , whispers a voice in the back of Gasters mind. _Predestined, fated, preordained_. Something in you calls to something in him.

Its a crapshoot of the highest degree; a concept that has faded to little more credibility among Monsters than it had among humans. But still...

Gaster could dream.

"And worst of all, my chest hurts _so bad_ , like a heart attack only I went to the doctor yesterday and they said I was fine, that it was just stress..."

Your voice breaks on the last word, and Gaster reaches for you, then swears when his hands just pass right through your arms.

“Fuck this...fuck it, I’m getting a shower...I hate this. I’m so tired.”

You pad away, leaving Gaster alone in the living room. He lasts all of fifteen minutes, thinking _desperately_ about how this all could be...when he hear’s a tiny sound from your bathroom. Like someone crying.

He wars with himself; he can’t touch you, can’t reach out to you in anyway...and maybe you want to be alone.

Then a resounding crash echoes from the bathroom, and he phases through the walls without thought.

An...interesting side effect of being made of voidstuff, is that barriers don’t really matter to Gaster. Walls, doors, planetary mantles...it’s not that he can see _through_ them per say, so much that he they just don’t register as obstacles to him if he remembers not to think about them.

So of course the moment he gets into the bathroom, his focus on seeing if you’re okay is such that the shower curtain offers no protection at all.

A wet, naked, swearing you is just finishing gathering up all the bottles of various goo that women seem to collect, setting them back into the shower-head caddy that had apparently fallen.

Oh you’re lovely. Breasts that he’d love to weigh in his palms, long legs with a wonderful amount of give to them...even your face is beautiful, despite your irritated scowl at the audacity of bathing supplies.

Gaster forgets himself for a moment, fascinated at the play of muscle under your skin. He’s seen countless naked humans, but never one he _cared_ about…

You sigh, settling the shower caddy back where it belongs, and turning to rinse the bubbles from your hair. Gaster is practically glued to them as they drip down your back and over your curves. While standing there, your hands roam over your front, running over little bumps or unseeable scars, or just appreciating the smoothness of the soap on your skin.

When you raise your hand to gently pluck at one nipple, a sigh leaving you…

Gaster should leave.

Gaster should really, really leave.

You tease it to full attention then work at the other, occasionally letting one hand drift up lazily to shift your hair around to catch any lingering suds. It’s a slow, unfocused play that soon has Gaster subconsciously adjusting himself.

You reach up, unhooking the showerhead and using it to rinse off the soap on your body proper...then, twisting the head of it until the water changes to a focused, steady stream, you slide it down your front and between your legs.

Gaster can only stare, his knees threatening to give out on him, as you prop one leg on a ledge in the tub and sigh, your head falling back. The water sluices down your thighs even as it pounds against that sweet, soft cleft, and then Gaster truly does wither to the floor when you reach down and part your lips with two fingers, gritting your teeth to stifle a cry when the water jet strikes directly against your pearl.

Oh, if he were real again. If he were your lover, if this were a show you were putting on to tease him. He'd stay just like this, would let you see how he sank to his knees before you. Would egg you on, perhaps even stroke himself in time to your pants, until finally you broke and your cry would echo off the misty tiles.

It's with these thoughts that he focuses and forms his member from magic, black with void rather than his true violet.

He fists himself gracelessly, not bothering to hold in a groan as you rise up on your toes, your peak drawing close, and he suddenly gets the wild thought that he could mount you this way, is tall enough that he’d be able to easily hold you up and push into you while you held the shower head to your clit. That he could feel you fluttering around him, could pound up into you until you screamed...

He spills with a yell at the same moment you thrash, a mew leaving your lips as your body shakes with an orgasm, your legs trembling.

Even as he strokes himself soft, working his own spend messily over his cock rather than letting it dissipate, he gets the idea that he wouldn't let you stop. That he'd let himself slip from you, but would set you down and drop to his knees, settling between your thighs and licking away the numbness of the water and your orgasm.  That his tongue, hot with magic as he spread you with one hand and licked around your over-stimulated little nub, could push up into you and taste you from the inside, that you could ride it like you'd ridden him...

"Again..." he whispers, too caught up in his fantasy to remember you can't hear him. "Come for me again."

Being a skeleton has some small advantages in this; his cock looks and behaves more like a seacreature's tentacle than a human's rigid length- there's a mobility to it that he's sure you'd enjoy, if you could get used to the idea. And it's made of magic; with enough focus, he can keep himself hard even after an orgasm, rather than going slack.

It's with that thought in mind that he circles a fingertip around the head then grips it again and wills it hard, imagining it to be your own little hand wrapped around him. As he does so, he stares greedily as, shakily, you set the showerhead back in it's holder and touch a finger to your swollen, oversensitive clit.

"Oh god, too much..." you whine breathlessly into the air, though Gaster pretends you're talking to him. He nods predatorily, running one palm up the underside of his cock as if to show himself off to you. He remembers the look on your face when, about a week ago, Sans had bought you a popsicle and told you to "open up", before shoving it as far as it could go into your mouth. It'd been late and you'd both been drinking a little, and he'd snuck up behind you while you were rooting under your desk, telling you to close your eyes and open your mouth for a treat. You'd gagged slightly, your lips stretched obscenely around it as your eyes popped open, and you'd yanked it out to glare at Sans and smack him...

It's your expression then that he imagines now, because Sans hadn't caught something at that moment... but _Gaster had_ . That brief moment when, in the quiet of the office with you on your knees as youd searched for something, muscle memory had made you not back away from the popsicle...but lean down _onto it_ , your throat working around it just for a second as your tipsy mind led you to believe you were sucking on something else.

He wants...everything, but most of all, he wants to taste you. He feels like a man in the desert, his tongue dry in his mouth when your fingers come away glistening with more than water.

Then, and he chokes on a breath at the sight, you suck your fingers clean.

Its impotence of the worst kind; to sit here, to see you hot and wanting, and not be able to fill you the way your jerking hips obviously want.

You’re silent this time, though the rigid lines of muscle and grit teeth tell Gaster that you’ve finished a second time, and he hurries himself to do the same, biting back a groan as he imagines it's your core around him, the heat and wet of you wrapped around him like the sweetest of harbors. The two of you stay there for a moment, panting, before you shut off the water and take a deep breath.

Then you step out...and your face crumples into tears, even as you wrap your arms around him. Gaster pulls you to him, desperate to comfort you.

Thoughtlessly you turn to bury your face in his chest, clinging to him...

...

You both realize it at the same time, though neither moves away from the other. If anything, you cling harder to him, and he to you.

You stay like that for a little bit, holding each other as you cry and Gaster holds back a few tears of his own, before finally, you lead him out and tug him down to sit next to you on your bed.

“How did I...how can we do this know? I didn’t even _think_ about it, I just...knew you were there, and so I came to you.”

Gaster squirrels those words away like a treasure, even as writes out <I DON’T KNOW< on your palm.

"We...we _have_ to figure this out. What's different now than it had been the past week?"

Your voice is rough from tears, but resolute. You lean back for a moment, letting go of his hand...

He panics, the touch-starvation rising up so hard it chokes him, and grabs after you, catching your wrist.You jump in surprise and he instantly lets go; he’d forgotten how physically strong Monsters are, compared to humans. Gently he takes your hand, and spells <SORRY<.

“It’s okay...oh god, you can’t touch _anything_ can you? I’m so sorry, here.”

You turn your hand over until your fingers are laced together, then sigh. “I have something that should probably, um...be yours. But since you can’t really take it, I guess I’ll keep it for now. Sans doesn’t want it.”

You stand, pat his hand for a moment before setting on the quilt, then slide a robe on that was hanging on the closet door and fetch something from the other room.

It’s the little book from earlier, and now that Gaster is closer...oh yes, he knows that handwriting. Flawless, eerily-perfect handwriting that he’d teased her for relentlessly.

“Sans said this was the only thing of hers that was in that machine, so the mentions of you in it were saved after you...fell. I can’t even see you, but god I feel like I’ve known you forever. She loved you so much.”

Yes she had. At one point, he’d loved her just as much.

“There’s nothing particularly useful in it, this was a sort of...of personal diary more than anything. It explains a little bit about how skeletons are made though, that’s why Sans gave it to me. She’d been researching these murals in a place called ‘Waterfall’, and found a few that referenced skeletons and humans.”

You set the book aside, holding your hand out wordlessly. He takes it, and you smile. “I think...and this might be crazy, okay. But I _think_ I have magic...skeleton magic. Or at least I have the potential to. See, my mom’s side of the family, for as far back as I know, always had slightly unusual female relatives here and there. Fortune tellers, herbalists with a little _extra_ , midwives...with the studies on Monsters and humans and magic that are coming out now, they’re saying that’s one of the ways you can look for a magical background in your family. But most importantly, my family has _always_ tended graveyards around Mt. Ebbot. In the woods behind here, there’s at least five old ones. Big ones. My family has always been connected to dead people in some way or another; preparing the dead, or acting as morticians, or just collecting bones like my grandmother did. So...what do you think?”

Gaster can’t help it; he leans forward, cupping your chin, and kisses you gently on the mouth.

He loves you _so_ much.

<I AGREE<

“Well since this has happened more than once, I guess we don’t count as a one night stand, huh? And weren’t you going to _tell_ me if you were around?”

Gaster freezes guiltily; yes, he _was_ supposed to do that…

You laugh a little, swatting at his arm. “I’ll forgive it this time. I knew you were there...you think women always put their back against the cold tile wall to get off?”

Oh. _Oh._

Something warm pours through Gaster at that. Then…

“I heard you, by the way. Or at least, I think I did. You have a wonderful voice for dirty talk.”

“ **_What?!”_ **

“What indeed. It’s not _quite_ hearing you, more like...hearing you in my mind. Why do you think I can hear you AND feel you then, _Doctor_ Gaster?”

Gaster’s mind scrambles, barely getting out an “ **_Um?”_ ** before you take pity on him, snickering. “Sorry, I’m sorry. It was just funny. But I _can_ hear you sort of, so...until whatever this is ends...what do you think is letting me communicate with you?”

The answer pops into Gaster’s mind unbidden; so obvious, he should have realized it from the beginning.

“ **_Sex. Sex is what is doing it.”_ **

You cock a brow, but Gaster puts a fingertip to your lips before you can ask. **_“To explain; sex magic is quite common amongst humans, yes? Many old wives tales tell of spells done during sex, or whilst...pleasuring oneself. It is a time of magical potential for humans and Monsters alike, and combined with what I also believe is Skeleton magic within your Soul…”_ **

“It’s letting me use that magic, sort of. Aimlessly use it, enough that you can...latch onto it, in a way?”

**_“It is the only thing I can imagine.”_ **

You nod, looking pensive. Then slowly, a grin spreads across your face, and you lean forward to nuzzle into his neck for a moment.

“You sound _exactly_ like I pictured.”

Gaster leans back slightly, wary. **_“Is that...acceptable?”_ **

You giggle- “Oh yes! Yes, it...it is. You sound very handsome.”- and he relaxes slightly. Gods above, but it’s so _effortless_ to pull you to him, to hold you.

**_“May I attempt something?”_ **

“Mmmhmm.” Apparently, post-orgasm you is a happy, snuggly you, because you’re practically wrapped around Gaster by now, and squirming closer every moment.

Gaster _adores_ it.

He extracts one hand from your grip, and lays it over your chest. You give him a heated smile, and he gently taps your nose. **_“No, not_ ** **that.** **_Hedonist.”_ **

As if he hadn’t thought the exact same thing.

But he focuses through your giggle, and... _yes,_ he can still do this at least. Your Soul floats free of your chest…

A deep emerald green, bright like all human Souls...but with a silver border that hums a harmony with his own Soul.

You both had been right.

“What is that?”

Your whisper is serious now, all traces of your previous silliness gone.

**_“It is your Soul. As a human, it should only be colored, and solid. Monster Souls are silver. The presence of a slight bit of second color confirms what you thought; you have Monster descendancy. I am sure it is Skeleton.”_ **

“How?”

When he looks down, you have the strangest expression on your face, as if trying to phrase something _very_ carefully.

“Not that I’m doubting you, I’m sure you’d know best for things like magic...but how would I be descended from Skeletons? Can Skeletons and humans…?

 _Oh_.

He hesitates, then scoots back on the bed, pulling you with him until his back rests against the headboard. **_“Skeletons and humans are…compatible.”_ **

“You can tell me to, quote, “Come for me again”, but you can’t say that the two can have sex? Screw? Fuck? Make the beast with two backs, the horizontal hello, the two-timed tango-”

He can’t help it, he bursts out laughing as you tic off names on your fingers. **_“You are terrible.”_ **

“And I'm _yours_! Lucky you!”

Gaster looks down then; either you are a remarkably cool-headed individual, or you don’t realize what you just said.

_Lucky me indeed. The luckiest man in existence, to find one such as you._

Then you look up right into his eyes, reaching up hesitantly before touching his cheek, tracing your fingers down to the edge of his teeth.

“I just met you. Literally _just_ met you, twice...and you don’t technically exist. But _god_ do I care about you....”

“...maybe we were meant to meet.”

Gaster sighs; he’d been thinking the same. Were you moving too fast? Was he coming on too strong (undoubtedly), were you being too trusting (definitely)?

And yet, it was as you said. There was... _something._

“Honestly, the more I look back...I’ve known you were around for months. I just...felt it. It was so natural. I even flinched when people walked through where I _knew_ you were, though I didn’t know why that was at the time.”

Huh. Gaster never even noticed; he’d gotten so used to not existing, it never bothered him when people walked through him.

**_“Perhaps...perhaps that is part of the reason I am gaining more influence. You make me care more about my existence. I had...stopped caring, for a time.”_ **

“So I’d imagine…”

The two of you go quiet, though honestly, Gaster doesn’t mind. It’s a comfortable silence with you, and he’s happy just to be able to hold you. After some time, you move slightly, leaning up to press your lips to his neck. He hums in pleasure, tilting his head to allow you access as your clever little tongue traces around his vertebrae. Shuddering in anticipation- you'd been circling closer and closer to the actual space between the bones...bupkis. 

“What’s your favorite color?”

He sighs, trying very hard to focus on you again. “ _ **Violet,**_ ** _like my magic. Or like my magic was. Yours?”_**

“Bright blue, or snow white. I know it’s a silly color to like, but…”

**_“No, now that you say it...I see the appeal. What is your favorite weather?”_ **

“Sunny days, especially if I can go swimming. You?”

**_“I enjoy the sun as well. I was never one for rainy days.”_ **

The two of you continue like this, learning about each other slowly. You tell him about your family, and haltingly, he tells of his mangled emotions for his sons. You don’t question him or offer advice, just hold him gently as he whispers of mistakes and wonderful accidents.

After the topic changes to schooling and early careers, you turn to smile up at him.

“You have a lovely accent, you speak very formally.”

Gaster nods against your hair, sighing. **_“Skeletons do not have the advantage of All-Speak as other Monsters do. Because we are cousins to humans, we must learn to speak as humans do. Where I came from...the grammar was very different. I learned English through the King’s brother, the Prince. We were close friends, so naturally, I picked up the royal dialect over common.”_ **

“The prince?”

**_“He died during the war.”_ **

You grimace, running your fingers up his arm. “Monsters have just…god _damn,_ we’ve fucked you guys over. That’s why I’m on such a warpath with this Vortex, you know? It’s something small that I can give back.”

**_“It is not small. Thank you.”_ **

Then, hesitating, he says, **_“I am not sure how long this will last. I...do not want you to feel as if you must force yourself to...to do anything, just so that I may exist.”_ **

You snort, shaking your head. “Yeah, because I’ve been so miserable with how I bring you around. We’ll figure something out, I promise...the surface is a _little_ more advanced in this area than Monsters were, I think. Dark matter physics is a huge area of research, and I’m pretty sure that’s closest to your problem.”

Gaster sighs, smoothing one hand down your side, then grins slightly when you giggle. Gently he prods there again, eliciting a shriek. “Stop that!”

Oh, it feels so good to do this. To...to _play_ , to be light and free and happy. He does it a third time for devilments sake, running his fingertips over your side until you thrash, fighting to escape him even as you laugh. Somehow the two of you end up flipped with Gaster on top of you, pinning your legs as you struggle madly, beating at him with your pillow.

Your robe has gaped open, the front of it sliding over your side until the focus of his tickling is bared to him, and Gaster wonders…

Allowing his magic to flow out and form the flesh his body remembers, he leans down and sucks gently on the crook of your waist, then scrapes his teeth over it.

The effect is immediate; you go liquid beneath him, arching back into his mouth with a gasp. “Gaster…” you murmur, and _god_ it’s good. He does it again, and again, until you’re a panting, shivering mess.

“I never...I never knew that would feel good. Where the hell did you…”

Gaster grins, though you can’t see it. **_“Leave a man some secrets.”_ **

Then, delicately, he runs his tongue along your inner thigh, bringing your hips stuttering up against his mouth. “And since when do _skeletons_ have tongues?”

It does something good for his pride, to hear you so breathless. **_“Skeletons use their magic to form any body parts that are not bone. I can have whatever I want.”_ **

The look you give him, propping yourself up on one arm to reach down and run the backs of your fingers over his cheek, simultaneously makes his Soul and cock swell at once.

“Well, I certainly know what _I_ want…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) and join the discussion on erotic cliffhangers <3
> 
> To be continued in chapter five...
> 
> ;)


	5. In a meadow, sunlit soft

Gaster…

Gaster needs to take a moment.

Because here you are, warm and soft and beautiful, your wet hair a wild snarl across the pillow and your robe’s belt still half-tied around your waist, and Gaster doesn’t know what to do.

Well that’s a lie- he knows what to do, but he doesn’t know what to _do._

It’s like going to the fridge at night for a drink of milk, only the jug you pick up and sip from is peach juice.

Except that you’ve never bought peach juice in your life.

Never knew how sweet it was.

Don’t know where it came from.

It isn’t just that he hadn’t planned for this, for having you bright and alive in his arms, for being surrounded by covers that smell like you, in a room that _feels_ like you. But it’s the first honest time that it strikes him that _he is real again._

For this brief time, this impossible span of breath- he exists.

After an eternity of nonexistence.

He’d meant only to take a moment really, but apparently it’s been far longer because suddenly you’re reaching up and pulling him to you, gathering him like an infant and _gods_ if he doesn’t feel like one right now. A gut-wrenching mix of panic and want and confusion and giddiness are churning in him, and if he had the parts to do it, he’d no doubt be shitting his tripes out with his head in his hands.

“It’s okay, it’s okay...hush baby it’s alright... I promise it’s okay, I love you... oh my poor man, I’m so sorry...”

You croon it in against his skull, a nonsense stream of affection and security, and Gaster, ashamed of himself, buries his face in your neck and hides there. You rock him gently, murmuring unintelligibly as you stroke his back, and after a few long minutes, Gaster gathers himself to sit back and kiss you as softly as he can.

**_“You...do not mean that.”_ **

He can’t find the words, can’t unscramble his thoughts enough to say what he really means, to say _please don’t say that, don’t promise something you cannot give, because I will take all of you if you let me, I am that desperate._

But then you catch his eye, and it’s with a woman’s calm, terrifying clarity that you say, “I love you. I love you.”

 **_“...Why?”_ ** _-_

-because you can answer, you _must_ answer, he can be drug back to the void so long as you answer…

“Because I know you.”

He stares at you, afraid to hope but _desperately_ wanting to.

“You could kill me, but I’m not afraid of you. You could put me to shame, but I know you won’t. You could hate me for having her journal, for learning things about you that you’d probably want kept secret...but you don’t. You’re smarter than me, but worse with people than I am. I think we’d work out quite nicely in the end. So...I’ll have you, if you’ll have me, and we’ll figure this out together.”

Then you add, in a small voice, “And I’d like to see you...to actually see you with my own eyes,”-

-and slowly, impossibly, Gaster feels himself start to smile. Then his shoulders quake, and he’s...he’s _laughing_ ; borderline hysterical laughter yes, but with a lighter Soul than he’s felt in years, and he grabs you and _almost_ kisses you; stays there staring at you for a moment, before slowly teasing your mouth open and licking against your tongue, your teeth, and everything around and inbetween until you’re a panting mess beneath him.

**_“I have loved you for an eternity. Or a month. It is up to you.”_ **

Your smile, hot and wanting and _so_ full of affection, is a balm for every wound he’s ever gotten.

“I’ll take both, depending on the circumstances. They say you should never ask a lady her age, but god if you go around just saying ‘eternity’ to everyone we meet- can you imagine the scandal, the starlets will be hounding me for weeks as to where I buy my beauty creams _oh_ …”

Finally the robe has slipped down your sides, and Gaster, rolling his eyes at your ramble, catches up your nipple gently between his teeth, putting the slightest pressure on it before laving it with his tongue as he worries the robe’s belt loose. Somehow though, the knot had tightened to a defiant level of impossibility for Gaster’s sex-addled brain, and it’s with a _growl_ against your chest that he takes it in two hands and tears it, flinging the pieces aside.

He cuts off your admonishment with a hurried, **_“I will get you a new one,”_ ** then bends to suck gently at the peak of your breast, weighing it and it’s twin on his palms with satisfaction. You shiver, whining, but Gaster doesn’t give in to the promise of your arching hips. He keeps at your breasts, first soothing them with gentle licks and long sucks, then, once they are pebbled and lovely against his palms, slowly pinching them harder and harder until he draws a guttural moan from your throat, your hands releasing their death grip on the sheets to clutch at his shoulders.

“Oh god _please_ baby, please _…”_

You are absolutely drenched when he reaches down to slide two fingers against your sex, shamelessly bucking your hips up to try and catch him inside...and honestly, Gaster couldn’t deny you even if he wanted to. You could ask for the moon, and he’d try his _damndest_ to figure out a way, somehow, to pull it to you. His flighty mind actually runs with the idea for a moment, long enough that you yank at his arm, trying to push his fingers into you.

“If you don’t stop teasing I swear to _god_ I will take care of this myself.”

-and Gaster looks up at that, and he _sees_ you flushed and panting, the very picture of a debauched lover, and…

 **_“Woman, I will lick you_ ** **raw.”**

Then he pushes his fingers into you, admiring the silky give and the noise you make, before falling back and hiking his arm under your hips, pulling them up to his mouth and dragging his tongue above his fingers, directly over your pearl.

You throw your head back, a gasping moan leaving you, and Gaster sets to doing the thing he’d wanted to do for _weeks_ . He tastes you, sips you; he practically _drinks_ at you, abandoning his fingers for his tongue and pressing it up inside you, being sure to catch your eye as he does so. Your whine, desperate and shattered at the sight, makes him so hard so fast, the rush of magic leaves him dizzy.

He finds a pattern and keeps to it, driving two, three fingers into you hard and fast, sucking at your clit then flicking his tongue over it until your breathing changes, goes from high, fast pants to deep gasps, your body tightening and straining until, with a muffled shriek into the pillow under your head, you come so hard he hears your spine pop.

You mew and sob as he works you through it, drawing you out until there’s tears leaking from your eyes, until you clutch at his arm and push him away, shaking.

Then you open your eyes, and, catching his in silent consent, you let your legs splay, reaching out to him and pulling him to seat home inside you. He slides in effortlessly, doing his best not to collapse onto your chest from the spine-wrenching pleasure of it, and stays for a moment, his eyes squeezed shut. Then he jerks them open at the tiniest noise that leaves your throat…

...and freezes.

Your gaze is locked on his, not starring in his general direction as you had been all night. Wordlessly, your eyes wide and more than a bit scared, you brush your fingers along his face, cradling his skull gently in your palm.

“You are...a very frightening man. A very handsome one, but also...oh please stop staring at me like that, it’s bad enough when Sans does it…”

The mention of his son at such a _delicate_ moment is enough to break the spell of shock that had come over him, and he lets go his questions as to _why_ you can suddenly see him in favor of addressing the sudden fear on your face. He wills his eyelights back into existence and struggles to speak, to say anything, but you take pity as his mouth works uselessly.

“Tell me you love me.”

**_“I love you.”_ **

You smile slightly, and suddenly, he can too. He looks away, then back again, uncertain. **_“Do you want me to st-”_ **

With a growl, you hook your legs around his waist and drag him down to you, wrapping your arms around him. “Don’t you _dare_ stop. I said scary, not stop.”

He grins against your shoulder, then raises himself slightly to, after getting your quick nod, press a simple kiss to your lips. **_“I know that I am not what you are used to...but I would never hurt you. Skeletons are just...different.”_ **

He spares a thought for his cock, _daring_ it to behave as anything more than a human’s penis would at that moment, but it meekly remains immobile inside you. You look his face over, stress fractures and eerie blankness and all, taking your time to think…

“Could I be on top of you?”

Gaster can appreciate the question, and not just for the fun of watching you ride him. This is still very, very new, and you want some semblance of control over the situation- he can understand that.

After squeezing your hip in warning he pulls out, drawing a moan from you, then lays down and shifts you a top him, running his fingers down your sides. You hold his gaze even as you raise yourself, then slowly sink down on him, baring your teeth slightly at the pleasure of it.

“Oh... _oh._ ”

Gaster had tried _so hard_ to not let his traitor dick get away from him, to not let it move or twitch or do anything else inhuman, but…

“Oh I can _certainly_ see the appeal of this.”

The expression on your face is a spreading, _filthy_ smirk, entirely unapologetic as Gaster gapes at you, before you rock your hips, testing the waters. Softly, because there's not an atom of him that doesn't love you, his cock shifts, arching and pressing against that place inside you that makes you moan every time. It’s like two waves crashing against each other; you're the rise to his swell, and the rhythm is almost too easy to find.

These first minutes, he knows, are a self-satisfied show more than an act of passion. Your hands wander over your chest not for your own benefit, but for his, and he shows his appreciation by chasing your fingers with his own, stroking and appreciating the softness of your body. Any more would distract you, and he is _loathe_ to do that as, slowly, you find a rhythm that is more than just a performance. Your movements change, your attention taken off your thighs and belly to move in, down, until _finally_ you shiver once, and Gaster knows you have it.

Shakily, you reach for his hand- he offers it instantly, twining your fingers together as you begin to bounce slightly on him, graceful rocking forgotten in favor of chasing that peak a second time. He cups your hip with his other hand, digging his fingers into the flesh and helping your movements, clenching his teeth to force himself to last even as he winds tighter and tighter, desperate to keep going yet aching to finish.

You lean forward then, lean down to kiss him...and when you sit back, he feels you clench around him even as a broken curse is torn from you, his cock humping up to rub exactly where you’d want it inside as your clit catches on the crest of his pelvis. Gaster can only pound up into you then, too greedy to do more as the two of you take on a hard, dipping rhythm, the building, grating pleasure of it collapsing your arms to bring you crashing down onto him. He clutches you as you whimper into his ear, pulling his legs up and bracing his feet on the bed to gain speed until he’s thrusting fast and shallow up into you.

Gaster is blown away by you- by the arch of your back and the wet sounds every time he rocks out and back in, by the tooth-gritting, toe-curling pleasure of your sex as it envelops him over and over. You're so close, he can _feel_ how close you are, how your muscles tense and your fingers tighten on his sides...

You turn your head to muffle your scream into his shoulder as you finally fly apart, fluttering and clenching around him and _finally_ he can let go, can hiss out a curse and grip your hips to seat himself so deep it leaves you breathless, letting his magic swell in you before bursting.

He lays there a moment, warring between bone-deep satisfaction and terror that you’ll be blind to him again, until, panting, you settle your face in the crook of his neck and kiss him, then slide shakily to collapse beside him, one hand playing over his ribs.

**_“I do not remember undressing…”_ **

He says it off-hand, a stray thought, but it makes you giggle against him all the same. “The feeling of clothing vanished somewhere between you going down on me and leaving a dent in my mattress, so I guess your subconscious remembered. You’d better not still have socks on.”

Curiously, he runs one foot over the other; no socks. **_“Yes, because gods forbid if you sleep with a skeleton….with_ ** **socks** **_on.”_ **

You sniff, the effect of which is ruined by your breathless, throughly-loved state, and close your eyes. “I hate it when men try to keep their socks on. Either commit or not, you know?”

**_“And will your future husband be barefoot to the altar then? Perhaps in sackcloth and cuffs as well, to be sure he knows where his fidelity lies?”_ **

“Well now that you’ve given me the idea…”

Gaster can’t help it- he’s smiling like an idiot as he wraps an arm around you. Insane, beautiful, brilliant woman that you are.

**_“You are awful.”_ **

“You always say the sweetest things.” You nuzzle against his side, then pause. “Just for curiosity's sake-” he groans hugely and you swat him “-oh shut _up,_ I want to know. Just for curiosity’s sake...why do you not feel like, well...bones?”

Gaster shrugs, turning his head to look down at you as you trace your fingers over his ribs. **_“I did not want to bruise you, so I covered them. It is like a cushion of magic. Easy to do.”_ **

“Huh.” Gaster knows that tone.

**_“Whatever questions you have, ask. I would speak with you as long as possible.”_ **

“New topic actually. So the closer we get, the more I can...see you? Perceive you? Once you were actually um, inside me...I could see you. Before that, I could hear you once we both finished at the same time. I think you’re right, with the sex and magic...which makes this _very_ tricky. How can we recreate that, but...backwards? Remake you rather than unmake you?”

**_“I...do not know. I would appreciate it greatly if you could get books on the subject of...of void studies; magical and scientific alike. I can see them, though not interact with them...you’d have to turn pages for me.”_ **

You give an exaggerated sigh. “So much work.”

**_“I am a fast reader, stop complaining. I can read over your shoulder.”_ **

“Okay. I can do that...I can do that. I might even be able to set up ebooks to autoscroll, though you won’t be able to pause it or go back. But that way you could read over stuff while I’m busy somewhere else.”

**_“I would appreciate that.”_ **

It doesn’t even occur to Gaster to tell you it’s okay, to tell you to forget it. To not bother with the effort. Your love is practically tangible; he can feel it in his Soul. To deny you this would hurt you as badly as it would hurt him.

You go quiet for a few moments, then squirm closer, throwing a leg over his.

“My chest stopped hurting.”

It makes Gaster frown, wondering. **_“And your doctors could find nothing wrong?”_**

You shake your head against him, your hair falling through his ribs to tickle in a wonderful way against his spine. Humming, he reaches down and, effortlessly, pulls your Soul free, a niggling suspicion in the back of his mind gaining weight.

And he was right. Sort of.

Your Soul, dark green with it’s silver border of mixed blood, is now laced through...but with _violet,_ rather than black as he’d been expecting _._ It’s like a meadow on a sunny day; tiny spots of brilliant purple showing through thick grass.

Gaster stares at it, mind racing. His magic is void-black, has been so since he fell...and yet somehow, your Soul had accepted his magic and...and _filtered_ it. Filtered it like cheesecloth and leaving only the pure purple of the original to meld with yours. He’d never thought the two colors particularly attractive together, but in this...in your Soul…

It’s beautiful.

“Is that bad?”

You’re staring up at it, biting your lip, and he’s quick to reassure you.

 **_“No, no this is...what would have happened, what_ ** **should** **_have happened, if I were my old self. But my magic is black void magic now, has been such since the Core...so why is it righted, now that it is within you?”_ **

“Can it be undone?”

His face must give away his heartbreak, because you sit up and drape yourself over him, eyes wide. “No, no that’s not what I meant! Not you, never you. I don’t...I love you, I don’t want to lose any part of you. But in _general_ , just for academic interest I mean.”

Gaster takes a breath, smothering the anguish that had welled up inside him with your assurances. **_“Yes, yes it can. Human or Monster can force it out if they wish to be free of the other; it is not a permanent binding.”_ **

You clutch at your Soul, pulling it close to you and sitting up (and isn’t that proof, if nothing else, that you are not an ordinary human; what human can interact with a Soul?). “Could someone do that to me? Force you out, I mean?”

Your face is angry almost, as if in defiance of the thought, and Gaster smiles, touched. **_“No. No one could force that; it is one of the few unbreakable magics that are in existence. Only you could change it.”_ **

You smile then, shyly, glancing down before looking back up at him. “Good.”

Oh, he can barely stand the love he feels for you then. He pulls you down to him, kisses your lips, your forehead, your nose as it crinkles and you giggle, then your lips again.

**_“I do love you.”_ **

You look away, then back. “Is it because...I remind you of her?”

Gaster sighs; he’d expected this, though honestly, he’d rather sleep right this moment.

**_“In ways, yes. You are much like her in drive and focus. But your personalities are very different; she was much more yielding than you, much less independent. She did not make decisions for herself if she could help it, yet resented you if you made them for her. I’d loved her then, but looking back…’_ **

“She wasn’t what you needed.”

He looks down, but there’s no malice in your face or voice. Just understanding. Here is the keen but constant camaraderie of women, and Gaster is grateful to see you give it so easily to Calibri’s memory.

**_“No, she was not. In her words, I ‘get up to nonsense if not watched closely’. But she did not wish to do the watching. She was my friend, a very close friend...but she gave nothing more than that. I...”_ **

You nod. "I know, love. You’re the kind of man that needs someone to steady him, and make space for what he can offer. To check yourself against. ”

It is disconcerting to talk to someone who knows him so well, in such a short amount of time spent together. He can only nod, wordless. You smile gently, tracing a finger across his lips. “I, for one, would love to have someone to muddle through life with. Though don’t you _ever_ try to talk over me, or go all quiet and sulky while I beg you to tell me what’s wrong.”

Gaster thinks about it; he can do that.

**_“I promise.”_ **

“And if we get this worked out...talk to Sans and Papyrus. Give them a chance to hate you or love you, but let them have the choice. Don’t just avoid them.”

Harder...

_" **I..."**_

"And do your dishes when you make them dirty, and pull the _entire_ weed out of the garden rather than just tearing off the top, and try to get your clothing reasonably close to the hamper at night-"

He kisses you only partly to quiet you, chuckling against your lips.

**_“Nag of a woman, I can see what my life will be like from here on out. Yes, I will speak with them if, by the grace of the Stars, this is fixable. It never has been before.”_ **

Your answer is a sleepy, confident purr, and it lulls him as well.

“You never had _me_ before.”

No, he certainly hadn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) and join the discussion on happy, sweet, moments:)


	6. Laying the beginnings

Gaster wakes with a jerk to tiny, tickling touches moving steadily down his chest. He tenses to flee -since when could anything touch him in the void?!- and then a soft voice assures him, “It’s okay love, it’s just me…”

...and he smiles, opening his eyes as memory floods back. You’re draped over his chest, looking at him with concern after he’d wrenched awake.

**_“Good morning.”_ **

Your face gentles, and you press another kiss to his sternum. “It’s really early yet. Are you alright?”

He nods, reaching up to rub at his eyes. **_“This is...very new to me. Apologies.”_ **

You shake your head, reaching up to run your hand down his arm then clasp his hand in your own. “No apologies, I understand. I’m glad I can still see you. And did you know, you can move the bed-sheets?”

Gaster’s eyes widen and he sits up in a hurry, practically tossing you off him. He grabs for the edge of the sheet where it rests on his hips, and...yes! Yes, he can grasp it, can pull it up to him! He looks around almost frantically, then grabs the box of tissues on your dresser, your glasses (he never knew you wore them), a decorative little bowl…

Only belatedly does he notice that you’d stayed in the position you’d landed in, grinning at him a little over your arms.

**_“I...I…”_ **

He’s not quite panicking, but this is just...it’s too much. It’s everything he’s been used to for eternity, suddenly turned on it’s head. Part of him wants to go fleeing back to the void and stay there until this all stops, and the other part is _terrified_ that this will...will wear off somehow, that he will lose this small amount of existence and form, and he can’t tell which part is true- maybe it’s a bit of both.

He takes a deep breath, filling lungs that don’t exist, then looks at you. You’d said it yesterday; he needs someone to steady himself against, and…

...and Gaster is _so_ tired of being alone. If you’re willing, if you truly meant it the night before-

**_“I am afraid.”_ **

For a man like Gaster, it’s an admission of the deepest sort. Son, to soldier, to refugee, to scientist, he had worked alone, and introvert to the core. He had never leaned on someone else, had never depended on another beyond a certain point...but then had come the void. With its helplessness and solitude; it’s amazing that something he’d craved all his life had become his worst nightmare, his cruelest jailer.

You frown a little, thoughts racing behind your eyes. “Afraid of...this? Of being with me?”

He shakes his head (shakes the rest of him if he’s honest), searching for the words.

**_“Of...of the difference, but also of going back. This is almost unknown to me, yet I would rather die than return to how I was before.”_ **

“Gaster...how long were you _there_? In the- void, had you called it? How long were you trapped in there?”

The words drip out of him, sharp as glass.

**_“Forever.”_ **

He can feel even it now; the void. It howls for his Soul, is present in the space between every atom of every substance around him; the bed, the air, even in _you._ He wants to run, to cower and hide from it- “No, no!” he wants to shout- but there’s no escape, of course there’s not, for how could he cling to a world he has no anchor in…

Amidst the sea of his fear, a tiny drop of something new falls and spreads. An awareness, almost too small to notice. Dimly, Soul pounding, he follows it-

-to you.

You have a hand on his ribcage, your eyes wide and scared as his vision swims back into blurry focus.

“I know it’s scary, _god_ I can only imagine how scary it is...but see, I have you. I can touch you, and I still have your magic in mine; you’re real. You exist. It’s alright, you’re still here. I have you.

Gaster feels choked; he can only listen to you, can only squirrel away your words and pray to any God listening that they are true- that they will remain true, because now that he’s had a taste of what’s possible…

...he thinks it will break him, truly break him, to lose it. To lose you.

“Hey. Gaster. Gaster! Look at me WingDings, right this moment!”

He jumps and jerks up to stare at you; he’s only ever heard you use that tone with your employees, or Sans if he’s being particularly awful, but he thinks there’s something native to a man’s genetics that makes him freeze when he hears a woman use it.

“What’s the equation to determine standard friction?”

Gaster’s throat tightens, but he pushes down the panic enough to whisper, **_“T-t-the...the coefficient times the force, with the c-coefficient being the sum of the two surfaces.”_ **

“And what is Papyrus’s favorite book?”

**_“The...Count of Monte Cristo...oh, b-but only in French.”_ **

“And do you like spiders?”

Gaster, breathing a little easier now, obediently answers, **_“No, they have far too many legs,”_ ** then realizes what he said and claps a hand over his mouth. But you’re laughing gently, so after a moment, he lets it fall to finger the bed sheets instead, pressing down the fear and horror into something he can manage.

“It’s alright, it’s alright. I think they’re scary too, even the Monster kind. Just...take a moment. For now, you're here right? And we know, sort of, how to bring you back if you become not-here. So hush, you're alright. Here, look what I found a little while ago."

Gaster opens his mouth to say that it isn't guaranteed; he could be ripped from your arms at any moment, for all he knows.  But before he can speak you hold out your phone, so he swallows his words and takes it from you like it’s covered in needles, gingerly clutching it and reading over the screen…

**_“This is research on…human magic. Not Monster magic, but native human magic.”_ **

You nod, crawling up to lay down next to his legs. Your head on his thigh is a comforting weight that helps banish the last of that desperate urge to fight or flee, at least for now, and he absently sends a wave of his own power down to cushion you from his hard bones. It’s getting easier and easier to both keep his usual ‘skin’ of magic over himself AND lay a cushioning barrier on top of it, when once it had taken him what felt like centuries to gather himself back into a living shape whilst in the void. He’s regaining his once-excellent control of his magic.

Gaster wonders what that means.

“Yes. Cultures all over the world have had certain people able to access this ‘in-between’ space. Dreamtime, Otherworld, the Veil...shamans and mystics have been accessing it for forever. I think it’s at least _similar_ to the Void, at least in the way we’d have to understand it to measure it, if that makes sense.”

Gaster blinks -he hadn’t been paying you much attention- then frowns, thinking. **_“While the details are not the same, the general idea of a place between places is...very accurate. This is a good start for the magical side, especially so if humans are able to access it.”_ **

You doodle a finger up his leg absently, biting your lip and thinking. Gaster’s eyes, despite himself, are latched on that little peek of your teeth, and he shakes himself hard to focus. **_“Is all human knowledge stored this way? Digitally, for anyone to access?”_ **

Caught in the middle of a stretch, your back arched over his legs as you display your bare chest proudly in the early sunlight, you shrug. “Some of it. There’s a _lot_ of garbage online, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if people are qualified to really talk about the subject they’re writing on. But yeah, a lot of academic research goes on the internet, plus I’m an adjunct so I have access to all the subscriptions too.”

Then you pull yourself upright again, putting a hand behind you for balance...but you slip on the satin sheets, and your fingers slide neatly in between the bones of Gaster’s leg.

His eyes go wide, and a tiny noise leaves his throat as he raises his head slightly to look down at you in what’s practically a come-hither. He can’t help it- if a stranger had jammed their hand there, or anywhere that was once safely protected by flesh and blood, it would feel _disgusting_. But you…

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Are you alright?”

Gaster’s jaw works; it takes him a few tries to spit the words out.

**_“Yes, I am just...that is a very…”_ **

His voice is much higher than his pride will admit to, and he clears his throat, stalling. Humans and skeletons share a common ancestor yes, but he doesn’t want to scare you you off with talk of _too_ many differences.

Almost gently enough to be an accident, you sit up slightly and drag your fingertips behind you so they run up the inside curve of his tibia, and Gaster chokes on whatever words he’d managed to scrape together. Something warm and knowing comes into your eyes then, and Gaster only just manages to drop your phone and lunge forward to grab your hand before you can do it all again.

**_“Bae’lani, that is not a place for you to be playing.”_ **

You lean forward and gently press a kiss to his jaw, turning your hand in his so you can twine your fingers together as well as the size difference allows. “Bael...Ba…?”

Gaster blushes deeply then- he hadn’t meant to ever call you that out loud.

**_“Bae’lani. It...is old.”_ **

Your smile when you realize it’s a _love_ name, a pet name, is as bright as starlight. “Does it mean something?”

Gaster hums; this had been part of his trouble, when he’d first learned Common. Many of his own language’s words just didn’t translate.

**_“It could mean...the feeling one has, when they see something greater and more beautiful than them. Something awe-inspiring and humbling, like a great waterfall, or the arm of our galaxy in the sky.”_ **

You crawl up until you’re straddling his lap, pressing yourself to him and letting your forehead fall against his. “Let your magic go, it’s alright. You won’t bruise me. Gaster that’s...thank you. No one has _ever_ said something like that to me before.”

He keeps his eyes open just long enough to see the smile on your face, before he chases it across your lips, slowly letting the buffer of magic between he and you fade as he kisses you. Your lips are so impossibly soft against his magical ones, that, in a rush, Gaster drops the thin layer of magic he usually keeps over himself too. The feeling of you warm and soft against him with no barrier between you is so good, it sends a jolt of heat straight down his spine.

“Teach me how to touch you. Show me...not just like I would a man, because you _aren’t_ just a man.. I see that now. I’m sorry for not thinking of it before, so...show me.”

He pulls back from you slightly, but you lean in after him, pressing little kisses mixed with touches of tongue and teeth down his jaw. The morning sun is just bright enough to highlight you through the window; warm, warm skin against snow-white bones, and Gaster can’t help but shudder when your tongue swipes out a little too far and touches in between the bones of his neck.

**_“There, that is...the inside places, the parts once covered by flesh and blood that are  unexposed to the elements now are very…”_ **

“ _Sensitive_ ?” You don’t say it so much as _breathe_ it, bringing up one hand to gently run the pad of your finger along the inner side of a rib. Then you swipe your tongue confidently across the space of his spine that he’d bent his head to the side to give you access to, and Gaster falls back against the headboard, shuddering.

“I’d noticed that with Sans too...you’re skeletons, but you really do use your magic like a second skin. I’d always wondered why his clothing fit him, rather than just hanging off him…”

Gaster can’t answer; he’s too busy trying to stifle whatever mortifying sounds are trying to spill from his lips as you work your way slowly up his neck, your kisses intermingled with swipes of your tongue and little nibbles. A particularly hard scrape of your teeth wrenches a groan from him, his hips jerking up against you, and the soothing warmth of your tongue in the same place brings his hands up unbidden to rest on your waist. You hum in pleasure, wriggling slightly until his grip falls to clutch you, his fingertips sinking into your flesh as you practically sit in his palms. When you finally reach the join of his skull, you lip along it then _bite_ at the same moment you scratch your fingernails over the inner front of his ribs, and Gaster can’t stand it anymore.

**_“Please, please Bae’lani...you will tease me to a second grav-please!”_ **

He can’t help the last ‘please’; it bursts from him when you arch your back to grind against his pelvis and suck a grey ‘bruise’ into the bone of his neck at the same moment.

“I never thought- oh _god,_ I never thought a skeleton would bruise…”

Gaster lets his head fall back, grinning even as he pants. **_“Out of all of this,_ ** **that** **_surprises you? Everything else is perfectly fine, but oh I_ ** **bruise,** **_well...I must keep your interest somehow, and if that is the way...I suppose there are worse fates than being beaten by a beatiful-”_ **

“-Ohmygodshut _up_ you miserable creature, I should stuff you back into that core and leave you there.. _._ ”

Gaster snickers; he adores how quick you are, how lightening fast your thoughts, so like his. Then he runs out of breath to laugh, because your wandering hand has strayed from his ribs and down, down until it crests the wing of his pelvis.

With the lightest of touches, you run your fingers along it before dipping down to the inner hollow, and Gaster’s last bit of patience snaps like old thread. He grasps you and tosses you off him, laughing at your shrieking giggles, and pins you beneath him before you can turn off your belly. You’re fearless now; the look you give him over your shoulder holds nothing but want and promise, and it’s as easy as breathing for Gaster to form his member from magic.

He leans forward, brushing his teeth over your shoulder in a skeleton’s kiss and murmuring, **_“I love you-”_ ** before pushing down hard on your back so your arms collapse under you, hooking one arm under your hips to hike them up at the same time, **_“-now stay right like that.”_ **

You gasp, your lips dropping open, and you press your cheek into the sheets as Gaster slides himself into you tortuously slowly.

He’s teasing himself as much as he’s teasing you; it’s a test of will, to see how long he can resist the siren’s call of thrusting himself home in you. But then you arch your back, rising slightly on your forearms to toss your hair and glare at him over your shoulder, baring teeth…

...well who is he to deny you?

The punched-out moan he elicits when he withdraws and roughly slams back in only feeds the fire in his Soul; he wants to hear that sound everyday for the rest of his life. He wants this; the wet, toe-curling heat of your body, the slight quirk of your lips when he prattles on about something, the brightness of your eyes when you laugh...he wants it every moment of every day for the rest of eternity, and it lights something within him. No longer will he be some void-ghost, barred to the world, forced to depend on his lover just to exist. For the first time since his ‘death’, Gaster...is _determined._

But there is time for plans and research later; right now, he has a squirming, double-handful of woman to satisfy, and if Gaster won’t do his _damndest_ to be sure you still can’t walk right come Monday...

He lets a tiny bit more of his natural strength creep into his movements -he’s come to learn that you’re stronger than you look, you can easily take it- and pulls out again, sliding out _so_ slowly that you whine, your fingernails scraping over the sheets.

“Gaster, baby _please,_ please just…”

Gaster arcs an eyebrow gracefully, a tiny smirk playing over his lips. He can wait.

The look you give him is....it’s something, that’s for sure. Narrowed eyes, a curled upper lip; Gaster has to be _very_ sure not to forget himself, to match your wildness with his own. He’s too much stronger than you.

But _Stars_ is it a close thing when you hold his eyes with your own and murmur, “Come on then, you have me where you want me...now do something about it. You’re my man, aren’t you-”

It’s a very close thing.

“-so _fuck me._ ”

It’s…

An absolute _snarl_ rips from his throat; he grips your hips so hard he knows they’ll bruise and slams himself home, again and again, tearing a gasping moan from you at the sudden rush.

But here is the small blessing of skeletons; he doesn’t need to stop, or slow down, or anything really until he can’t bare the pleasure of it anymore. He has no muscles to fatigue, no breath to lose...and it seems that you realize that somehow, because Gaster hears you whisper, “ _Oh god…”,_ your arms giving out from under you.

He’s merciless; he hears your breath rising, your little mews increasing to desperate moans, but he doesn’t let up on you at all. The early sunlight panels you in beautiful lights and darks as you shift and cry out beneath him. You are _his_ woman, _his_ lover...and to his surprise, he feels you suddenly clench around him with a stifled scream, the muscles of your thighs shaking violently against his.

 **_“Oh you good girl, you beautiful thing...without me even touching you, just from me_ _inside_ ** **_you...”_ **

The words leave him unbidden; a thoughtless, breathless string of affection and desire as your core pulses and clenches around him in orgasm, so wet now that he can hear it, can feel it on his pelvis.

You sob into the sheets, pushing back against him with each thrust, and Gaster clenches his teeth so hard they creak, determined to ekk out one more peak from you before he can’t last any longer. He slows, working you through it until your breathing slows to a less desperate pace and you turn your head to watch him from the corner of your eye, your hair a wild mass around your face.

Oh he loves you. He loves you so much it burns him.

He slides from you and guides you onto your back, your legs falling open easily to cradle him as he slowly thrusts home again. He smoothes your hair back from your forehead, panting despite not needing the air, and kisses you gently, mastering himself.

**_“Are you alright?”_ **

He whispers it against your lips, and you nod. “Don’t stop...let me feel you.”

Gaster closes his eyes, resting his forehead against the pillow beside you as he works himself back into you, finding a slow, deep rhythm that soon has you breathless and shaking. It’s almost impossible to hold out; you’re so tight around him now that he’s practically dragging himself from you each time.

He groans, his arms shaking as he pulls out of you achingly slowly, almost withdrawing the whole way before driving himself forward as deep as he can. Beneath him, you're reduced to whimpers and gasps, one hand twisted in the pillow and one on his shoulder.  
  
"Oh god Gaster please, I can't stand it, _please_ just...just..."  
  
He knows what you want. Gripping your shoulder between his teeth to distract himself, he picks up speed until he's thrusting fast and shallow into you. It’s not enough stimulation for him to go over the edge, but he’d learned last night that it’s one of your favorite feelings; you have the pillowcase between your teeth within moments, both hands twisted in the sheets above your head as you tremble and gasp.  
  
"No, oh god wait...please don't stop, please- oh god ohgodoh _god_!"  
  
It’s the same nonsense stream of begging and denials that comes from any woman when she's close, and Gaster raises his head to watch your face, a rush of pride at your expression of ecstasy as you grow closer and closer. Movement catches his eye, and he turns slightly to watch your shadows; a woman, all curves and breathless arches, grasping at something that _isn’t_ there, that doesn’t exist to block the light.

Once, the sight would have broken him. Now it just drives him harder; he _will_ exist again. He will be real for you.

It’s with that thought in mind that he bends again and grips the join of your shoulder in his teeth, some primitive instinct driving him to hold you there, and the cry it tears from you is so sweet Gaster can almost taste it. You lose your grip on the sheets and scrabble at his shoulders, your breath high and tight, and Gaster can’t take it any more, you’re too perfect around him, too beautiful and tight and warm and-

“ _Gaster_!”

It’s _almost_ a scream, a shattered, broken wail that sends him tumbling over the edge himself with a shout, pinning your hips with his and slamming himself home one last time. He lays there above you, panting, waiting for his cock to dissipate before backing off you and collapsing onto the bed, letting one arm fall over his eyes.

After a few moments, you tiredly throw a leg over his and squirm closer to lay out against him, pulling over a pillow to cushion your head from his arm. He raises his arm slightly to glance down at you, smiling...then freezes when he catches sight of his own Soul, summoned somehow from obscurity within him.

Tiny, tiny flashes of emerald fire, like an aurora, flicker in it’s depths. He opens his mouth to say something -to wonder how you’d possibly done it or maybe cry a little, because Calibri would not _ever_ let him do this to her or her to him, and you can’t possibly know how much it means to him- but your deep, even breathing tells him you’ve fallen fast asleep.

He gathers you up wordlessly, careful not to jostle you, until he has your comforting weight atop him with the softest layer of magic between that he can summon, and closes his eyes.

_‘If this is my second chance, then I take it, gratefully. Starlight keep faith in me, I will be a better man.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) for more sinning.
> 
> I swear to god, I have a plot for this fic...but they won't. stop. FUCKING. It's like writing a bunch of high schoolers! They just won't stop fucking!!!


	7. White moves first, black wants in white's pants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter count keeps going up and up...
> 
> *sighs*

The sunlight is bright when Gaster drifts awake again, squinting at his clock until his magic focuses enough to let him see the time. _Noon...you’re getting old, Wingdings._ He scrubs a hand over his face, wondering what hell has gone on at the lab whilst he’s been gone; usually he’s the first one there and-

…

Sunlight?

His memory catches up with the rest of his sleep-addled brain in a rush -the Core, the Void, _you_ \- and he twists around in half-excitement, half-worry, reaching out…

But you’re not there beside him. The covers and rumpled and warm though, and it’s only a moment later that the bathroom door opens and you come padding out, yawning hugely. You don’t even hesitate (Gaster isn’t even sure your eyes are open); you let the beleaguered robe fall off your shoulders and crawl up onto him in one motion, nuzzling down against his neck and murmuring something unintelligible.

Something warm and soft fills him then, and he reaches up to wrap his arms around you, holding you and nuzzling his face against the softness of your hair for a moment.

**_“Isn’t this a bit uncomfortable, love?”_ **

You shake your head, squirming closer as if trying to bury yourself in him, and Gaster bites back a chuckle, trying to twist his neck away from your nuzzling and the barely-there tickle of your breath.

“S’worth it…”

Your voice is a scratchy murmur, and Gaster resignedly watches the last of his stoic sternness vanish into the great beyond when his Soul gives a giddy flop at the intimacy of your voice, your position.

**_“Do you have anything to do today?”_ **

You sigh, nodding, then push yourself up to kiss him on the cheek before flopping down beside him and rolling up in the covers, stealing all the blankets off Gaster and cocooning yourself in them. He tugs, but you hold on, giggling. He tries a few different ways of reclaiming his side of the bedclothes, all unsuccessful, then shrugs and, grinning, reaches out and touches the top of your head with one hand.

A shockwave of violet spreads from his touch, ruffling your hair for a moment and sparking an answering glow from your Soul. Then gravity loses all effect on you, and you thrash with a yelp as you begin to float up in the air. Gaster, snickering now, reaches up and snaps the blankets like one would a rug or towel, flipping you out of them and removing his magic from you at the same moment. You fall just as Gaster bundles up all the covers himself and lays atop them like a dragon with a hoard, reaching out to snag your pillow too for good measure.

“Mean!” You stay on your stomach, your hips switching like a cats as you look him over, and Gaster can’t keep the grin off his face as he waits…

You pounce, giggling. But Gaster sees the movement start in your back, and reaches up to catch you, flipping you onto the pile beneath himself and kissing you thoroughly, shivering when you drag your fingers down his spine and tickle the tips across the arch of his pelvis. His hips twitch down into yours, and he’s _just_ about to call to his magic again, when...

“I really do have to get up though...I promised Paps I’d come today, and you should come with me!”

Gaster huffs, letting his head fall to your neck even as the magic swirling in the bone of his pelvis dissipates back into him. But you squeeze him so tightly for a moment, that he can’t really bring himself to grumble for long.

**_“What are you and Papyrus doing ?”_ **

You smile, your face lighting up. “Oh, today’s the last day of the state championship for chess! Papyrus is in the finals; the match started at eleven thirty. but he said not to bother coming until after noon or so. He starts slow; lets the other person squirm for a while.”

When Gaster doesn’t answer for a moment, you squeeze his arm gently. “Love?”

He takes a breath, jaw working while he tries to figure out how to say what he feels. **_“I...have missed so much of their lives. So many of their accomplishments; I had no idea Papyrus was even interested in chess, like...like I was. Am.”_ **

He backs off you, letting you sit up in the bed as he scrubs a hand over his face. **_“How many years of missed opportunities...I know it is pointless to dwell on, but...Stars, even in the Void, where I could learn all I wanted of anything I wanted...I didn’t really_ ** **look** **_into their lives. To_ ** **really** **_try to learn about them. Once they were out of the Underground, I just...left them again. Left them for wider horizons, for after all- I couldn’t reach out to them, couldn’t help them in anyway... and why would they even_ ** **want** **_my help, after all I did…”_ **

He trails off, clamping his teeth shut before his traitor mouth runs away from him again- it’s a heady thing, to speak his sins to a woman. He chances a look at you; your face is sad, one hand raised slightly as if to reach for him. He winces slightly, berating himself; this is _not_ how one goes about the ‘morning after’. The sun is too high in the sky for the airing of personal failings.

 **_“I apologize for going on like that…”_ ** Gaster fixes his gaze on the far wall, working at the hole in his left palm with his thumb to distract himself.

A soft hand takes his, pulling his thumb away and covers his palm with it’s own. “I don’t mind...I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak before. Not that I’ve had that long to gather experiences to compare to…”

It’s a lifeline, and Gaster knows it. **_“You will have to forgive me; spending the night with a beautiful woman does things to a man’s brain.”_ **

His voice is _mostly_ even, which is a start. When you make a noise in your throat, and he turns to find you blushing ( _Blushing! After all you’d done to him the night before!_ ), Gaster takes the opportunity to lighten the heaviness in the air.

 **_“Now I know women never, and I mean_ ** **never,** **_get ready on time. So when again must you go see Papyrus?”_ **

“A-around one or so…” Your face and chest are still flushed, and you don’t meet his eye. Gaster squints at you for a moment, the beginnings of a grin on his face.

**_“So I can give you all manner of compliments, bottomed out inside you with your nails in my shoulders...but telling you that you are beautiful in the light of day is enough to bring you to stutters and pulling out loose threads in the sheets?”_ **

You yank your hand back in a hurry from where you’d been doing just that, making a face at him and pulling the blanket up to cover most of yourself.

“This is just…” You trail off, biting your lip and looking away for a moment. “I don’t want to...I...oh god, I don’t know how to say it.”

Gaster frowns, waiting. After a moment, you sigh and turn back to him. “You’re...important. Very important, in the world of Monsters, yes? If you hadn’t...fell, then you’d be in a very high up place right now. You’re also _much_ older than me; and not that I’m complaining! It’s almost the opposite in fact; aren’t _you_ going to be, I don’t know...dissapointed in my lack of experiences? Even if I lived my entire life, that’s not even a _tenth_ of the time you’ve been alive. I just don’t want you to be….humoring me I guess. Or…or using me.”

Your voice is very quiet at the end, and Gaster smothers the knee-jerk flare of hurt that your words cause.

 **_“You are...right, in a way. No, not like that!”_ ** He holds up a hand when your eyes grow wide and hurt. **_“Not like that, listen to me. I am...old. Physically old. I have seen eras of the world go by. But...most of those eras passed me as I was trapped Underground. I know very little of the surface world and its history, and…”_ ** He trails off for a moment, grinning sheepishly. **_“Even Underground, I was not the most...social of people. I am hopefully mature enough to see that in myself now.”_ **

“That’s not a bad thing…” Gaster smiles at you, at this attempt to comfort him even now.

**_“No it is not. But it is how it is. You spoke rightly yesterday- we do fit well together. You are charming, intelligent, approachable when you care to be...no, don’t give me that face. I heard you when that idiot environmental protest tried to set up outside your complex; that was the exact opposite of approachable.”_ **

You duck your head to hide a grin, completely unashamed of yourself, and Gaster can’t bare it any longer; he reaches out and pulls you to him gently, bundling you onto his lap. You tuck your face against his chest, twining your fingers through his ribs and making him shiver slightly.

“You know, this manhandling of my personhood is doing wonders for my feeling feminine and delicate.”

Gaster snorts, bouncing you slightly. **_“Don’t flatter yourself woman; I could lift this bed one handed, easily. Maegister Monsters are much stronger even than normal Monsters, and they are usually stronger than humans to begin with...”_ **

“You’re a _boss monster?!”_

Gaster winces; he’d liked having hearing on that side, but alas…

**_“Well...yes.”_ **

“Oh...wow. Okay yeah, I can, uh...see how that makes sense, you are kinda, um...big, and intimidating, and…”

You trail off, and Gaster narrows his eyes, craning his neck to try and see your face.

**_“Thank you, I think?”_ **

You sit up in his lap slightly, and it pinches Gaster when he realizes that, ever so subtly, you’re leaning _away_ from him.

“You could really hurt me.”

And doesn’t that just bring the two of you back to where you’d been before? Whether perceived or real, there’s a power imbalance here that scares you...and Gaster can’t honestly blame you. But this at least, he can help with a little…

**_“Actually, unless I physically laid hands on you...I currently could not.”_ **

You cock an eyebrow at him, dredging up old fantasies of scantily clad librarians (he wonders if you’d wear your glasses for him sometime, put your hair up in a knot too while you’re at it…), and Gaster shrugs, smiling slightly.

 **_“My Soul has colored your Soul, and yours, mine. My magic could not hurt you now even if I tried. It would simply pass through you, or you would absorb it back into yourself, much as if I began an offensive working, then decided against it. I can_ ** **act** **_on you, use certain magics specific to skeletons, well, specific to me at least, on you...but I could not attack you with it.”_ **

You purse your lips, looking him over; for being a foot and some taller than you and currently holding you in his lap, Gaster feels a strange desire to squirm away from that gaze regardless.

“Magic specific to you...so, time, space…you’re gravity then, I’d take it.”

Gaster blinks at you, a delighted smile slowly spreading on his face. _Gods above_ , he loves you! Loves how smart you are!

 **_“I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what you mean…”_ ** It’s a bold-faced lie; his voice cracks with giggles in the speaking of it.

You sigh happily, a feline content with confirming a suspicion, and snuggle up under his chin. “I always wondered who the third was! With Sans and those awful ‘shortcuts’, _god_ those make me sick as a dog...and then Papyrus, just solidifying air into something he can walk on, or any of the other completely impossible little things he just ‘does’...are we going to meet a skeleton named Roman next? With my luck, he’ll just go flitting around playing with weak atomic force, or magnetism or something, and then won’t I be out of a job, nasty skeletons…”

Gaster can’t help it; he laughs so hard he has to lay back, covering his eyes with one arm as you curl up contentedly on his chest.

**_“No, no...most skeletons cannot control the basic forces of the universe. Sans and Papyrus are my biological children, which is usually impossible for skeletons. Sans slips between the threads of time, whilst Papyrus happily jumps on them like a trampoline. They have those powers because of me; they aren’t just part and parcel with being made of bone.”_ **

“Thank god, can you imagine? The world would have fallen apart by now if it was.” You press a kiss to his collarbone, tickling along it slightly with your tongue, and just as Gaster starts to relax into the idea that _yes he probably could go again_ …

“It’s already twelve thirty?!”

You throw yourself off him and into your bathroom so fast, Gaster’s hands are left dangling in midair where they’d been resting on your back and shoulders, and he sighs. As various crashes and swears echo out of watery bathroom noises, he resigns himself happily to the idea that this could be the rest of his life, and begins forming clothes over his bare form again. It wouldn’t do to walk around naked, even if no one else but you could see him.

He’s picking through your phone, using up all your lives in candy crush purposely, when you come stumbling out of the bathroom, soaking wet and clutching a towel around you like a lifeline. You dash by him, dig through a drawer, and shoot back into the bathroom again clutching a handful of lacy underthings.

**_“Yes, it was nice talking with you dear.”_ **

“Fuck up, see ‘shut the’, you miserable sack of bones…”

Gaster grins broadly, laying back on the bed and poking through the mad scramble of notes you have saved all over your phone. Everything from notes about groceries, to a stern self-reminder of “paint your TOENAILS IT HAS BEEN THREE MONTHS”, to random ideas about the vortex...yes, even with the two of you being vastly different in many ways, you’re very similar in some, too.

“How do I look?”

Gaster turns, eyes widening as you lean against the doorway in just a few lacy scraps, the various bits and pieces _begging_ his fingers to slide under them, to gently pull them away from your skin, and…

 **_“Is that, um...what you usually wear?”_ ** His voice is overly-high even to his own ears; he can’t help it! He has a terrible weakness for lovely, lacey things...and for the removing of said lacey things on a woman, and…

“Oh no, just special occasions!” Your voice is too sweet and innocent; you glance up at him through your eyelashes, then flounce by to the dresser directly in front of him, being sure to bend as _low as possible_ to dig for something or another…

**_“Bae’lani, you are trying to kill me….I am too old, my bones will just fall to dust right here.”_ **

You cast a look over your shoulder, pulling a curse into Gaster’s throat (which he stubbornly swallows back down), smile, then straighten with a pair of leggings. Then, switching your hips, you vanish into your closet, and Gaster closes his eyes, counting prime numbers. He will _not_ make an ass of himself, acting like a boy fresh out of apprenticeship and seeing his first naked girl.

A quiet ‘hm’ from the closet draws his attention, but you step out before he can investigate, pulling a long shirt over your head. The material is light and flowy; instantly, Gaster’s fingers itch to touch it, touch you, and…

**_“You are doing this on purpose…”_ **

You walk over to him slowly, letting him look you over, then lean down and press a kiss to his teeth with a giggle. “Oh absolutely.”

Gaster leans up after you as you pull away, but you’re already heading for the bathroom again, poking through the makeup scattered across the sink. As you delicately put something or another on your eyes, you call back to him, “I have some shopping to do tonight...will you want to come with me then, or would you rather stay here? It’s clothing shopping.”

 **_“Stay here, if it pleases you.”_ ** Gaster says it with a shudder, he _despises_ shopping for clothing. Anything else, fine. But he will not be a hanger mule.

“It’s no problem at all.” You wander out, stretching, and Gaster stands to sweep you up in a sudden hug. It’s so freeing, to know his affection is welcomed, is _wanted,_ even.

“What’s gotten into you?” Your voice is sweet and gently teasing, a soft smile on your lips, and Gaster strokes a damp lock of hair away from your face.

**_“Just...happy.”_ **

You run a finger down his chest, and when you look back up, a curl of something warm and liquid runs down Gaster’s spine with the appreciation in your eyes. “Sweaters and slacks? God, but you remind me so much of a professor I had at college…”

The look on your face tells Gaster in no uncertain terms that this was a professor you knew _very_ personally. **_“That sounds like a very interesting story…”_ **

“I’ll tell you if you’re good…”

When your clever little fingers had hooked into his waistband, Gaster has no idea. He runs the back of his fingers down your neck, marveling at the silky-softness of your skin and the way you tilt your head slightly for him…

But right at that moment, your phone starts going off, the alarm flashing “Go see Papyrus!” in bright letters on the screen, and you turn away from him to grab it.

  
Gaster sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come [tumbl](http://beewritesstuff.tumblr.com) with me :3
> 
> They _almost_ had sex in this chapter, too. It was a very close thing.


End file.
